Gujarat elections 2017: GST, demonetisation fail to fulfil Congress's hopes again

NEW DELHI: Anger over demonetisation and the Goods and Services Tax (GST) failed yet again to deliver the votes of discontent to the Congress that the grand old party had hoped for. Gujarat's powerful business community seemed to make its anger felt in some cities, handing some seats to the Congress, but that fell well short of expectations.

The Congress had pinned a significant part of its electoral strategy in the GST-demonetisation corner. Rahul Gandhi had even gone after GST, mocking it as the 'Gabbar Singh Tax', and insisting that the BJP would get an 'electric shock' in the elections.

Rahul had also taken on PM Narendra Modi in his 'a-question-a-day' attempt, asking him if his government would take responsibility for the losses faced by traders because of GST and demonetisation.

The BJP for its part had hit back saying Rahul's bitterness over the Centre's policies was because the Congress had lost its black money because of demonetisation.

At around 1:30 pm, the Congress has won or is leading in only four seats in the three major urban business centres of Ahmedabad, Surat and Vadodara. Of these four, it has managed to wrest only two seats from BJP - the Jamalpur-Khadia seat in Ahmedabad and Padra outside Vadodara. It is locked in a few tight battles other areas.

Other important business centres too thumbed their nose at the Congress's strategy of tapping anger of GST and demonetisation. Rajkot painted itself in saffron, while other business centres like Alang and Anjar too voted for the BJP.

This is not the first state assembly election where opposition parties have tried to drum up support on the basis of discontent and anger against the Modi government's economic policies such as land acquisition, farm loan waiver, GST and demonetisation.

Eight states are headed for elections in 2018. Whether the Congress will continue to try and use demonetisation or GST as lighting rod issues despite their seeming failure so far will remain to be seen.