Writing on the wall

Status quo means the Congress will continue to lose ground

The outlook for the Congress is steadily getting bleaker. As the only potential nationwide alternative to the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), it has lost credibility as a political force in state after state, losing to both the BJP and regional parties. In recent years it has lost ground in Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, Delhi, and West Bengal to regional parties; and in Assam, Haryana, and Karnataka to the BJP, besides Himachal Pradesh and Uttarakhand. It has ceased to count in Uttar Pradesh (UP) and Bihar, having been in that position in Gujarat two decades ago. Its resurgence in Madhya Pradesh (MP) has been undone, in Rajasthan it is faction-ridden, and in Maharashtra, it is now only a minor force. In Odisha and several other states, it now comes third.

Further, its regional allies are giving up on it as they realise it counts for less and less. Akhilesh Yadav did it in UP after his deal with Rahul Gandhi yielded nothing. Now Tejashwi Yadav’s Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) has hit out at Mr Gandhi for holidaying during the Bihar campaign. The Congress managed to win only 19 of the 70 seats it contested in the recently concluded Bihar Assembly elections and proved to be the weakest link in the RJD-led Mahagathbandhan, which lost to the National Democratic Alliance in a tight contest. The Congress’s only allies left are in Maharashtra, including, ironically, the Shiv Sena. Out of power for long periods in many states, the party has been unable to recover lost ground and, therefore, withered at the root. It is short of funds and local leaders of consequence in most states. As a result, the discourse across the west-north-east belt — i.e. above the Vindhyas, east of it, and, to some extent, below it — is now what the BJP wants it to be, not what the Congress holds out with less and less conviction.

To be sure, the reasons for the continued decline of the Congress are well known. The Gandhi family looks lost and out of touch, but won’t allow any other leadership to emerge. In both houses of Parliament and at state level, India is back to a one-party dominant democracy, with the BJP taking the place that belonged in the distant past to the Congress. This is unlikely to change in the foreseeable future. Its performance in the Bihar Assembly election and by-elections in several important states, including UP and MP, has once again raised questions about the state of affairs in the party. However, this again may not change much. For instance, the all-important letter written by 23 senior leaders, including sitting members of Parliament, a few months ago, seeking changes in the party organisation, has not yielded anything so far.

There has been no critical evaluation of the party’s electoral performance, both at national and state levels over the years. The party has not been able to find a successor to Mr Gandhi after he resigned as president over a year ago, owning responsibility for the 2019 Lok Sabha election debacle. Clearly, the biggest reason for this is the party’s inability to go beyond the Gandhi family. The status quo would mean that the Congress would continue to lose ground and increasingly find it difficult to present itself as a national alternative.