Sonia Gandhi v BJP Presidents, who performed better?

The Congress party's dynastic structure is roundly criticised by most experts as a negative force for both the party and the country. The recent challenges in the parliament especially with respect to the passing of GST are often held out as an example of some of these problems with the Gandhi dynastic politics. The big question is, why does the Congress party stick to the Gandhis inspite of such 'obvious' downsides?

Instead of offering the usual explanations, I reviewed the performance of  Congress party under Sonia Gandhi versus the performance of the BJP (the other leading national party) during the period 1998-2015 to get a better sense of how her leadership compares with the BJP. 

In 65 State elections conducted since 1998 in 18 leading states, the electoral performance of the Congress party (In alliance or own) is no different from the BJP (In alliance or own). This is a little surprising but can probably be explained by historic Congress presence and better electoral performance of the Congress party between 1998 and 2009 when either the BJP was in power or the economy was growing at 8%+

When it comes to number of States never won since 1998, the difference between the Congress party and BJP again is quite mininmal. The BJP is marginally behind but this can be explained by its lack of presence in states like Kerala, TN or even Bengal. 

When comparing the two parties on State Governments re-election rates, the gap is huge. BJP does an excellent job on re-election. 

There can be only 3 explanations for this huge difference - BJP faced far fewer re-elections than the Congress party, the Congress party does a poor job of PR when in power and also the fact that the Congress party Governments in the State suffered from anti-incumbency on account of the poor governance in the centre between 2009 and 2015.  The last point is particularly true. When it comes to performance on the economy (see chart below) during the last 5 years, there were as many Congress States in the Top 5 as there were BJP States. Yet, every Congress Govt in the Top 5 was thrown out while the BJP ones were re-elected. Similarly, in the bottom 5, there is just one Congress Govt (Assam) which appears to be struggling to be re-elected while there are two BJP Governments (Punjab-alliance and Chhattisgarh) both of which were re-elected in the last 2-3 years. Either way, it is fairly clear that Congress party's perceptions and political campaigns when in power are probably executed when compared with the BJP. 

The other way to look at it is that the Congress party failed to breakthrough inspite of poor economic performance of ruling parties in Odisha, Chhattisgarh and Punjab. This is probably due to a mix of strong central anti-incumbency and poor organisation structure on the ground. 

Summary

The biggest loss under Mrs Gandhi is that Congress party is no more the pivot for politics in India. That said, the Congress party inspite of the obvious concerns around dynastic politics has competed well when compared with the BJP in the last 17 years since Mrs Gandhi became the Congress President. The party's performance plummeted between 2010 and 2014 as double incumbency and poor quality of campaigning hit the party across many States. The party can sustain if and only if it manages the perceptions of its current incumbent governments in an effective manner. It will also need to seriously build up its party units in States like Odisha and Chhatisgarh where the State Governments appear to be struggling to deliver strong economic performance. Lastly, given the massive damage it has suffered amongst Urban voters (Congress won half the votes versus BJP), it will need to find a better way to oppose the current Government. The media environment and political engagement amongst urban voters has changed dramatically between 2011-12 and today (10-15 times in case of digital and almost double in case of Television). The urban voters are likely to be less forgiving of the Parliament Shenanigans in 2015. 

The BJP on the other hand has done quite well and is now the pivot for all politics in India. The party with its strong ideological rootings, good funnel of national and state political leaders, strong governance in some States and strong anti-incumbency at the centre was able to replace the Congress in the centre. However, that dynamic has now dramatically changed with double anti-incumbency and more unified opposition. In the last 6-12 months it has faced some of the same challenges that the Congress party faced between 2010 and 2014 - A stuttering economy, negative PR, unified opposition, interruptions to governance and a series of corruption scandals in its State units(though not of the same scale). The Congress party's response was to bully everyone into believing an alternate truth (zero loss theory). In this era of numerous media outlets and social media, this is not practical. In my view, The BJP must continue to emphasize on positive & creative governance and delivering on the economy . Further, it MUST be seen as a truly empathetic government willing to listen and engage with all stakeholders irrespective of whether the feedback is positive or negative. The last factor in my view can make a huge difference to how long the BJP will be able to sustain its performance nationally and across States.