Congress' learning curve

Smarter alliances, social media tactics helped

After plummeting to historic lows in the 2014 and 2019 general elections, the Congress appears to have internalised the lessons of failure to nearly double its own seat tally in Parliament and forge alliances that have eroded the Bharatiya Janata Party’s (BJP’s) dominance, including in traditional strongholds. Though its broader election rhetoric may have scarcely been novel, being based on the old tropes of freebies and handouts, the grand old party finally displayed the kind of hard-nosed political savvy that was missing in action this past decade. The foundation for the bounce-back lay in the Congress leadership’s realistic understanding of its own limitations and a better appreciation of the political capabilities of its alliance partners. As a result, the party chose to contest far fewer seats, fielding 328 candidates, the first time it has contested a general election with less than 400 seats. In 2014 and 2019, the party fielded candidates in 464 and 421 seats, respectively. This time, however, it gave away a little over 100 seats to partners in the Indian National Development Inclusive Alliance, or INDIA. Interestingly, the biggest reduction came in Uttar Pradesh, where the Congress contested just 17 against 67 in 2019 (when it won just Rae Bareli), ceding the others to Akhilesh Yadav’s Samajwadi Party (SP).

The upshot was a jolt to the BJP in its stronghold; INDIA won 43 of the 80 Lok Sabha seats, with the SP emerging as the single-largest party with 37 (from five in 2019) by astutely fielding candidates from a broad spectrum of middle and lower castes. The Congress’ alliance worked well in other large states like Maharashtra and Tamil Nadu. The alliance with regional parties also perhaps worked well because of the absence of a dominant national theme. This allowed the Congress and regional parties to focus on basic and local issues. The party could have potentially gained if INDIA fought together in other states such as West Bengal. If astutely taking the backseat where needed served both the Congress and INDIA well, a savvy campaign focused on social justice, reservations, and defending the Constitution, a message that resonated well with the Dalits, created the space for a viable Opposition and turned the BJP’s “400 paar ” theme on its head. This much was clear from the results in reserved seats, where the BJP won 56 of the 131 reserved for the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes, down from the 77 in 2019, with most of the losses in the Hindi heartland. The Congress, meanwhile, won 32 of these constituencies, up from just seven in 2019.

In a campaign dominated by the digital media like never before, the Congress performed well on almost every social media platform. The party essentially relied on fewer launches but mostly focused on short videos on Instagram after surveys showed that more people got their information from this platform rather than WhatsApp. Having finally got a handle on the mechanics of electioneering, the new challenge for the Congress leadership will be fashioning a coherent platform from its widely disparate alliance partners as it prepares to give the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance its first significant Opposition in a decade. It remains to be seen how the Congress utilises its own revival both inside and outside Parliament.