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O 081524Z DEC 08
FM AMEMBASSY NEW DELHI
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UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 03 NEW DELHI 003097 
 
SENSITIVE 
SIPDIS 
 
DEPARTMENT FOR SCA/INS 
 
E.O. 12958: N/A 
TAGS: PGOV PREL SOCI PINR KISL IN
SUBJECT: CONGRESS PARTY'S SURPRISE WIN POST-MUMBAI 
 
REF: A. NEW DELHI 3096 
     ¶B. NEW DELHI 3094 
     ¶C. MUMBAI 572 
     ¶D. NEW DELHI 3066 
     ¶E. NEW DELHI 2969 
 
¶1.  (SBU) Summary:  In what came as a surprise to many, the 
Congress Party exceeded post-Mumbai attack expectations and 
fared well in elections for legislatures in five states.  It 
won three of the states convincingly and reduced the margin 
of the opposition Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in a fourth 
state.  While most of these states are traditionally straight 
two party states (Congress vs. BJP), this time Uttar Pradesh 
Chief Minister Mayawati's Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) made some 
inroads.  In the aftermath of the Mumbai attacks, the ability 
of the Congress Party to hold its own is considered a win in 
an environment that is made even more difficult by two other 
national issues: inflation and the fallout of the worldwide 
financial crisis on the Indian economy.  Our interlocutors 
have suggested two lessons from the elections results: all 
politics in India is local, with national issues playing a 
secondary role; and the public's outrage in the wake of the 
Mumbai terror attacks is directed at the entire political 
establishment, not just the Congress Party.  The results 
bring some cheer to the beleaguered party which has faced 
many reversals in the last year, capped most recently by the 
Mumbai attacks.  If these elections were considered a dry run 
for the national elections due before May 2009, then the 
mixed results today suggest that it will be as difficult as 
always to predict which party or coalition will come out 
ahead in the national elections.  End Summary. 
 
¶2.  (SBU) Indian democracy continues to surprise at the 
polls.  It sprang yet another on December 8 when counting 
took place and results were announced for state assembly 
elections that took place over the last three weeks in five 
states: the Congress Party beat out post-Mumbai attack 
expectations and fared relatively well.  Bucking conventional 
wisdom, the Congress Party stormed back into power for a 
third straight time in Delhi.  It convincingly ousted the 
incumbent BJP government in the important north Indian state 
of Rajasthan.  And, it wiped out a ruling regional party in 
the small northeastern state of Mizoram.  Polling for these 
three states took place after Mumbai attacks had ended: Delhi 
and Mizoram - November 29 and Rajasthan - December 4.  In the 
two other states - Madhya Pradesh (MP) and Chhattisgarh, both 
in central India -- the Congress Party suffered disappointing 
losses to the BJP. 
 
 
                Congress    BJP    BSP    Others 
 
Chhattisgarh        36       47      2       5 (pending) 
Madhya Pradesh      70      144      7       9 
Rajasthan           98       75      7      20 
Delhi               42       23      2       2 
Mizoram             32        0      0       8 
 
 
BJP BUCKS ANTI-INCUMBENCY IN MP and Chhattisgarh 
--------------------------------------------- --- 
 
¶3.  (SBU) Rajasthan and Delhi results have been reported 
septels.  In MP, the ruling BJP lost some ground from its 
overwhelming 2003 win, but still returned to power with a 
solid two-to-one drubbing of the Congress Party.  The BJP 
also won in Chhattisgarh, where it retained its comfortable 
margin.  In winning these two states, the party was able to 
overcome the drag of anti-incumbency, which is often 
compelling in Indian elections and which it was unable to 
resist in Rajasthan. 
 
¶4.  (SBU) In the run-up to the elections, analysts had said 
that the Congress Party's inability to declare a clear 
 
NEW DELHI 00003097  002 OF 003 
 
 
challenger to incumbent chief ministers Shivraj Singh Chauhan 
of Madhya Pradesh and Dr. Raman Singh of Chhattisgarh would 
cost the Congress votes.  In addition, both incumbent BJP 
chief ministers in these two states have a relatively clean 
and pro-development image.  The two BJP state units also 
blunted anti-incumbency by offering many fresh faces to the 
voters.  In both the states, even incumbent sitting ministers 
were sometimes denied the party nominations if they had 
serious corruption charges against them, or if their 
constituents expressed serious dissatisfaction in the 
detailed constituency level surveys the party conducted. 
 
BSP Makes Inroads 
----------------- 
 
¶5.  (SBU) Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Mayawati's BSP 
contested almost all seats in all the states except Mizoram. 
Unlike some of the other state elections earlier this year, 
not only did the BSP contest seats, it also put together a 
strong campaign on behalf of its candidates with Mayawati 
holding rallies and making appearances in each state.  This 
appears to have worked for the BSP because its fared well. 
It won seven seats each in MP and Rajasthan and three in 
Chhattisgarh.  It only got two seats in Delhi but had a 11 
percent share of the vote, which means it could have tipped 
some seats away from the Congress Party. 
 
Tough Environment For Congress 
------------------------------ 
 
¶6.  (SBU)  Pundits consider the mixed results in the five 
states a "win" for the ruling Congress Party, which was seen 
to be staggering from the fallout of the Mumbai terror 
attacks, which capped two years of accelerating terror 
activity within India and appeared to reinforce the BJP 
charge that the Congress is soft on terror.  The Congress 
Party's standing had also appeared to suffer from inflation, 
which reached a 13-year high earlier this year.  The 
worldwide financial turmoil had begun to have an impact in 
India with the stock market losing 60 percent of its value 
this year and economic activity beginning to slow. 
 
Two Lessons 
----------- 
 
¶7.  (U) Our interlocutors offered the following overarching 
interpretations of the mixed results: 
 
-- all politics is local in India and national issues 
(terrorism, inflation, economic downturn) simply did not play 
in these state elections while local factors (governance, 
caste/ethnic politics, choice of candidates) did; 
 
-- while it may be too early to tell just yet, it could be 
that public's outrage in the wake of the Mumbai terror 
attacks is not simply directed at the Congress Party but at 
the entire political establishment. 
 
Comment 
------- 
 
¶8.  (SBU) Many considered these state elections a dry run for 
the national elections due before May 2009.  If so, the mixed 
results today suggest that it will be as difficult as always 
to predict which party or coalition will come out ahead in 
the national elections.  Today's were upbeat for the Congress 
Party and the GOI it leads after a week in which it was 
reeling from the public's anger and ridicule over the Mumbai 
attacks.  The results, especially in Delhi and Rajasthan 
which went to the polls after the Mumbai attacks, gives the 
party a bit of breathing room and offer a hope that its 
position going into the national elections is not hopeless. 
Many in the Congress Party must be strategizing that a steady 
string of announcements and actions in the coming weeks to 
 
NEW DELHI 00003097  003 OF 003 
 
 
strengthen the GOI's counterterrorism efforts (creating a new 
federal agency, tightening laws, increasing resources for 
security agencies) plus a steady focus on local issue would 
allow the party to escape the electorate's wrath in the 
parliamentary elections. 
MULFORD