The media was starry-eyed, Congress workers euphoric and the BJP cadres disheartened by the entry of Sonia Gandhi into the 1998 electoral campaign. Not for a long time had any politician attracted such huge crowds and evoked so much interest ...
But despite the hype and hoopla and despairing grumbles from the BJP camp about the naivete of the Indian voter, it is a moot point whether the enthusiastic and curious crowds at Sonia's rallies converted into votes for her party.
On the basis of available evidence, there is nothing to suggest that Sonia halted the BJP's progress ...
Poll statistics show that the BJP increased its vote share by five per cent, and along with its allies its vote share went up 10 per cent. In contrast, the Congress vote share has fallen by nearly three per cent. The number of parliamentary seats won by the Congress has remained the same at 140. The BJP's seats have gone up by 17.
While the increase of seats by the BJP and allies has gone up by 54 seats from 1996.
A pre-poll hypothesis was that Sonia's visit to an area would swing many borderline constituencies in favour of the Congress ..
According to a pollster's calculation of the 130 odd constituencies which Sonia visited during her hectic 34- day tour covering 60,000 km, the Congress in 1996 won 50 seats and 49 seats this year.
Some 22 of the winning seats are in Rajasthan and Maharashtra ... where there was also an anti-incumbency mood at work.
Elsewhere in the country, a number of sitting Congress MPs lost their seats this time despite Sonia visiting the region.
In Delhi, Sonia addressed a huge rally ... but the BJP increased it seat tally (even) Chandni Chowk ... was wrested by the BJP from a two-term sitting Congress MP.
In Uttar Pradesh, Amethi ... the family fiefdom was wrested from the Congress's Satish Sharma by the BJP. Sonia held rallies at Rampur and Shahjahanabad but the incumbent Congress MPs from the two constituencies were defeated by the BJP.
Hyderabad was one of Sonia's first rallies where the media marvelled at the crowd response, nevertheless the Congress did not retain the Secunderabad seat. Sonia held a rally ... Mallikarjun's Mahboobnagar constituency, but he lost his seat to the Janata Dal's Jaipal Reddy.
In Rajasthan, Sonia addressed a rally at Udaipur but Girja Vyas, the two time Congress MP from here lost to but the four Calcutta seats held by her party last time voted for the Trinamool Congress and BJP combine ...
If the Congress lost its last few seats in UP, Sonia cannot be blamed since the party was on a weak wicket. By the same token, it would be unfair to attribute Congress successes in Maharashtra and Rajasthan to Sonia factor, since both were largely bipolar contests and the BJP was handicapped by an anti-incumbency mood ...
In Karnataka, the Congress lost in most of the areas Sonia visited except for Bangalore and Raichur ..
Perhaps, the best state to judge the impact of the Sonia blitzkrieg would be tiny Haryana where there was a clear swing against the state government of Bansi Lal who was in an alliance with the BJP. Haryana voters in the past have differentiated between an assembly election and a parliamentary poll in their voting patterns. But this time, the biggest beneficiary of the anti-Bansi Lal mood was not the Congress but Om Prakash Chautala's regional HLD party. Sonia held rallies at Faridabad, Kurukshetra, Sirsa and Rohtak. The BJP won Faridabad, the HLD won both Kurukshetra and Sirsa and incumbent Congress MP Bhupinder Singh Hooda defeated an ageing Devi Lal by a mere 500 odd votes.
While Sonia's contribution to the Congress may not be measurable in terms of seats and votes, there is unanimous agreement that without here entry into the campaign, the then demoralised Congress would have slid further downward ... whatever were Sonia's gain for the Congress, they were perhaps ore at the expense of the UF than the BJP.
