The rout for the Congress in assembly polls, one after another, should cause serious worry for its rank and file. Even where the BJP could not win power, the regional parties took the upper hand. The Congress joined the government as junior partner in Jharkhand and kept away from governance in Jammu and Kashmir even as the INDIA alliance trounced the BJP in both states. Haryana was a washout for the grand old party; and so was Maharashtra, where the party’s tally was simply 16 in a house of 288 – the worst-ever. Where the Congress would go from here is a big question.
True, the Congress got a fresh lease of life when it won the assembly polls in Himachal Pradesh in 2022, followed by its win in Karnataka in 2023 and in Telangana earlier this year. Some keenly-watched assembly polls would follow as in Delhi soon and Bihar later. In both these, there’s no hope of a good Congress show as the party’s state units remain weak. Arvind Kejriwal’s AAP has rejected a tie-up with the Congress in the run-up to the polls there, set before mid-February. The fight there would likely be between the AAP and the BJP. In other words, any good news is unlikely for the Congress in the near future. The BJP’s stocks remain high. Madhya Pradesh, Goa, Gujarat, Chhattisgarh and Haryana elected BJP or pro-BJP governments for the third time in a row. So was the case in Bihar, where Nitish Kumar is BJP ally. However there is yet no visible anti-incumbency wave in any of these states. Inside Parliament, with a good number of seats in the lower house, the party is well-endowed compared to its negligible presence in the last house. Rahul Gandhi as Leader of Opposition is doing reasonably well, taking on the government on major issues. Add to this the presence of his sister Priyanka Gandhi.
Note the fact that West Bengal’s Mamata Banerjee is preening her feathers after a fresh bout of disappointments for the Congress in assembly polls. She was lying low when the Congress stock went up. Here now is an opportunity for her to try and upstage the principal opposition and position herself in the forefront, although this is wishful thinking. Having garnered around 100 seats in Lok Sabha, the Congress retrieved its image as a strong political establishment. It is running three states and part of the power edifice in two other states. Banerjee can be content with guarding her sole fortress with rare leadership skills. Until the nephew steps into her shoes, there’s less chance of a downfall for the TMC or a repeat of what happened in neighbouring Odisha. As of now, other than the tamed Congress, there’s no other serious challenge to the BJP.
