The actual reason for the Congress' turnaround is the success of the Bharat Jodo Yatra where our leader Rahul Gandhi connected with the common people, said Congress MLC Madan Mohan Jha

PATNA — After its resounding victory in the Karnataka assembly polls, there is a buzz among the common people about whether the Congress would repeat its performance of 2004 in 2024.

No one knows the future but the political parties have started their preparations at the ground level to tilt things in their favour.

Congress MLC and former state party president Madan Mohan Jha claimed that his party is gaining political ground in the country and was confident of defeating the BJP. The Congress is together with the opposition parties and its leaders have only one motto — Country’s interest first and party’s interest is secondary. It believes in opposition unity to defeat the saffron brigade.

“The actual reason for the Congress’ turnaround is the success of the Bharat Jodo Yatra where our leader Rahul Gandhi connected with the common people. He listened to their problems and the people think that their problems can be solved by this leader. Hence, the people responded to the call of Rahul Gandhi and associated with him and the Congress party,” Jha said.

“The result in the Karnataka assembly election is proof of it and the same will be replicated in the upcoming elections in Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh and Rajasthan and in the Lok Sabha election 2024 as well,” Jha claimed.

“The people of the country are thinking that the Narendra Modi government has wasted their nine years with fake promises and anti-people policies. Whatever, Narendra Modi brought as the BJP policies in the country, it has hurt the common people. It has failed to control inflation, price rise of commodities, brought three farmers’ bills, approach during pandemic, first demonetisation, then GST have immensely hurt the common people. They are angry with the policies of the Centre and they are now saying enough is enough. No more Modi in the country,” Jha said.

When asked about the first demonetisation in 2016 and the BJP winning the Uttar Pradesh assembly election held just four months after it in February 2017, Jha said: “I don’t know what would be the effect of demonetisation part 2 but the situation in 2017 and now is completely different. At that time, there was hope from the Narendra Modi government that it would do something for the welfare of the common people but it was not the case. Now, they have no hope from this government and hence they are voting for the Congress party,” Jha stated.

“When it comes to bargaining for seats in Bihar, the Congress party and our leader Rahul Gandhi firmly believe that the primary objective is to remove the BJP from the Centre. We have no desire to take more seats in Bihar. We have a 7-party government in Bihar and they will sit together for a seat- sharing formula. One seat less or more would not be a matter for us,” Jha said.

The BJP think tanks believe that if the Congress wins the assembly polls in these three states, it will change the mood of the voters completely in favour of the grand old party in the Lok Sabha election 2024.

“There is no doubt that if the Congress party wins the assembly elections in Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh and Rajasthan, it will be on a high in the Lok Sabha election but winning in these states needs a combination of other political parties as well. You cannot say that if the Congress has won the Karnataka election, the same would apply in other states too,” said Shivanand Tiwari, national vice president of the RJD.

“If we talk about Madhya Pradesh, it would not be wise for the Congress to go alone and ignore the Samajwadi Party (SP). The party of Akhilesh Yadav has a track record of taking one or two percent votes and one or two MLAs also won the elections in the past. In Rajasthan, the Congress top leadership has to resolve the conflict between Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot and Sachin Pilot before going into the election,” Tiwari said.

“As far as the second phase of demonetisation is concerned, I personally believe that most of the money belongs to BJP leaders. I do not understand the second demonetisation as of now but I feel that it is a move to dry up the cash of the opposition parties, if they have any, before the assembly elections in those three states and for the Lok Sabha. If the Congress wins the elections in these three states, it will be the biggest thing for all opposition parties in the Lok Sabha poll 2024,” Tiwari said.

Neeraj Kumar, a JD-U MLC, said: “The timing of the withdrawal of the Rs 2000 currency notes is more important here. They knew that the assembly elections in three states were coming up. The BJP is behind the withdrawal of the Rs 2000 currency notes and the RBI is the face of it. It is the biggest fraud in the country that the BJP is doing in the name of black money. When the first demonetisation had taken place in 2016, they said that it was a surgical strike on black money which is being used in terror funding, Maoist activities and others. Have these activities stopped? Why are security forces personnel dying in Dantewada and Kashmir, has Amit Shah any answer to it. The biggest benefit of demonetisation was for the BJP leaders and they did the same now only to influence the elections in these three states.” — IANS