Cause for concern

Prashant Kishor’s prediction over the weekend that the Congress party would be routed in the forthcoming Assembly elections in Gujarat and Himachal Pradesh didn’t require the formidable analytical skills of the election strategist. A day earlier, Patidar leader Hardik Patel’s exit from the party, with a sarcastically disrespectful reference to chicken sandwiches in his letter to Congress President Sonia Gandhi, had indicated which way the political wind was blowing. Even the most casual observer of the proceedings of the mammoth Chintan Shivir at Udaipur could have come to similar conclusions. After three days of deliberations the party came up with a notably weak and unremarkable agenda — reserving seats for candidates under 50, a qualified limitation on seats for dynasts,