ISAS Briefs

The fog of war is confusing. The fog of defeat can be even more debilitating: the comfort of denial and post-defeat rationalization are its natural offspring. The Indian National Congress Party’s comprehensive defeat in the Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD) elections in April 2012 has added to its growing list of recent electoral setbacks and its public response has followed a time-worn typescript. Swinging between defensiveness and despair, its official statements have ranged from the technical “this was not my election” response by Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit to the carefully crafted “it was a local election” comment by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh. Further down the pecking order, party spokespersons, struggling to find silver linings in the defeat, have half-haughtily, half-hopefully pointed out that they managed to win the last Delhi assembly election after a similar MCD rout in 2007.