Why Rahul Gandhi Flopped, Akhilesh Yadav Didn't

Bangalore: “We will win over 125 seats and I will talk to you on Tuesday,” said a highly confident Digvijaya Singh on March 3, just three days ahead of the poll results tying his hopes strongly on the charisma of Rahul Gandhi, to whom he is more than a mentor. However, it was the calmness of the Akhilesh Yadav that rose to glory on the 6^th of March when the younger Yadav cycled his party to a comfortable majority in the Assembly elections in UP where the much-celebrated Congress resurrection under the leadership of Rahul Gandhi burst like a water bubble.

What went wrong for Rahul Gandhi despite his intense, years long campaign in the state? Or what worked in favor of Akhilesh Yadav, who from a near nobody, transformed into the key architect of one of the exceptional election victories of recent times?

If Rahul’s chances were grim with a weak organizational structure and a party that has long been out of power for the last 22 years, Akhilesh came at a no better time as SP parted ways its celebrity leader Amar Singh and the Bollywood gang with him, losing the high-profile focus on the party including the corporate biggies. Ever since the 2007 assembly elections when SP lost to its archrival BSP, the party had a series of electoral defeats including 2009 Lok Sabha elections and there was a constant drop in the vote share mainly due to its estranged Muslim community for its controversial alliance with the Hindutva icon Kalyan Singh.