Like India's World Cup campaign, lost in finals: T S Singhdeo on Cong's Chhattisgarh defeat

New Delhi: Outgoing Chhattisgarh Deputy Chief Minister T S Singhdeo on Wednesday likened the Congress' assembly polls defeat in the state to the Indian cricket team's recent World Cup journey in which it won all matches but lost the finals.

In an interview with PTI, Singhdeo said the collective leadership in the state, including Chief Minister Bhupesh Baghel and him, were working together and not so disunited. However, he stressed that, in general, greater unity is always better.

The 71-year-old Singhdeo, who lost his Ambikapur seat by a slender margin of 94 votes, also contended that the view propounded that there has been a shift in the tribal vote is "limited" and pointed out that the party had also done badly in urban areas.

Asked about the Congress doing well in local body polls and in the run up to the elections but losing in the all-important contest, Singhdeo said, "It does look very much like this World Cup where we did very well in other events (matches) but could not make it in the finals." India won all 10 matches before the World Cup final. However, it lost the cup to Australia.

On whether greater unity in the ranks would have helped, the former Union minister said, "100 per cent. Any house which is together is far better than a divided house. There can never be two ways about it." Asked if it was a divided house, Singhdeo said it is not a question of being divided or not but, in general, every time it is required for the whole family to be together.

Pressed further whether it would have helped if he and Baghel displayed greater unity, he said, "It is not just both of us and display is synthetic, people can very easily see through things. So synthetic things do not run. You have to be actually together and every effort should be made, it is not just between us, there are so many people and so many sets of organisational levels..It is not limited to any two individuals and at every one of those stages, it is necessary, that we are a house together." On whether there should have been more unity in the collective leadership in the ranks, he said, "Whether or not we were united… I don't think we were so disunited, we were working together but you asked a particular question, so in general, 100 times out of 100 times, it should be a house together rather than divided," he said.

Talking about the talk of tribal vote shifting to the BJP, Singhdeo said one needs to look separately the result for the Congress in the tribal areas of Bastar and Surguja where out of 26 seats, the party was able to win only four, and the performance in other tribal areas.

"There are four from Bastar, we did not win any seat from Surguja. Five of the seats are non-reserved seats in Sarguja, 9 are tribal seats, and 11 there (Bastar). So 20 tribal seats, out of which we won four. There seems to be a shift here from time to time. Some people see a 10-year cycle in this," he said.

Singhdeo recalled that there was a time when the BJP won 11 out of 12 seats in Bastar and similar numbers in Sarguja area.

In the next election, it was three for the Congress in Bastar and then there was a turnaround when the Congress won a larger number and then it won all the seats, he pointed out.

"This election, it was a different scenario…where there is a gain for the BJP in these tribal seats in Surguja and Bastar, otherwise there are many other tribal seats which the Congress has won," he said.

So, this view which is being propounded that there has been a shift in the tribal vote is "limited", Singhdeo said.

"We have not performed for whatever reason as well as we had last time or as well as we should have performed in Bastar and Surguja, while out of the other tribal seats, the Congress has won most," he said.

He also pointed out that the Congress does not seem to have done well in urban seats.

Out of 14 municipal corporation areas, the Congress has won only in two -- Bhilai and Dhamtari, he said.

Something seems to have gone "badly wrong" in urban areas too, Singhdeo stressed.

Asked with whom the buck stops for the defeat in the state, Singhdeo said with each individual who had a responsibility.

"You cannot pass it on to others. If I am to be held responsible, I should be the first and only one who should be held responsible for Ambikapur, I should be held responsible for Surguja commissionary, I should be held responsible as deputy CM for other parts of the states also," he said.

So, it starts and ends with every individual and it cannot push it on to someone else's head, he added.

"Every individual from the booth level to the state hierarchy. Each one of us is responsible and we should shoulder it very sportingly," Singhdeo said.

Talking about the reasons for the defeat, he said, "What I can see straight out without too much analysis is that there is an increase in vote share between the Congress and the BJP, there has been almost a 10 per cent increase in the combined vote share of the two parties… Somehow that vote increase has gone to the BJP." Something the BJP has done right which has given them this advantage, he added.

Singhdeo, however, rejected suggestions there was complacency that had crept in and asserted such thinking was "misplaced".

On his own defeat in Ambikapur, he said the primary responsibility was his and the "buck starts and ends with me".

The BJP won 54 seats in the 90-member Chhattisgarh House, restricting the Congress tally to 35, while one seat was won by Gondwana Gantantra Party.