The state leaderships of the Congress in different states are receiving a rude jolt. Take Chhattisgarh where Ajit Jogi was asked by the Congress high command to account for his alleged involvement in an assembly bypoll to make it easy for the BJP to win. As a result, his son, Amit Jogi was expelled from the party. Ajit Jogi has now decided to launch a new outfit. His third force will reduce Congress support and weaken the party position in the contest in Chhattisgarh. It will no longer be a bipolar contest. The trend is part of the nation-wide rift between the state Congress units and the Congress high-command in Delhi. The same thing happened in Assam with Himanta Biswa Sarma leaving the party and Vijay Bahuguna doing the same in Uttarakhand. All this is a blow to the Congress in Delhi which has a skeletal existence in Parliament. The Party itself is pessimistic about its future.
Since 2014, the Congress has been on a steep downward slope. Its latest reverse has been in Assam where the BJP never had a hold. The BJP won a massive victory in the state by weaning away powerful leaders from other parties in the state. The Congress had of course ups and downs in the past and was reduced to a very low position when Atal Behari Vajpayee was Prime Minister. But the political scene changed with Sonia Gandhi elevating the Congress to an undisputed position. The situation has taken a U-turn. If the party goes down in the states, the high command will also take a beating. There is a lot to make the old warhorse totter.
