Worst show ever, Cong shocked by election results

Aditi Tandon

Tribune News Service

New Delhi, May 2

The Congress electoral decline continued on Sunday with the party failing to challenge the incumbent BJP in Assam and LDF in Kerala, losing Puducherry to the NDA alliance, disappearing from the West Bengal landscape and piggy riding the victorious DMK in Tamil Nadu.

A shocked Congress said it acknowledged the defeats, especially in Kerala and Assam, and would work to reconnect with the people and analyse the results State wise after wide ranging introspection.

While the party officially offered a staid, moth eaten response of “will introspect and course correct”, several leaders said they knew for years now what was ailing the party and wished the leadership could see it.

Even strategist Prashant Kishor, who helped TMC chief Mamata Banerjee script history in Bengal, said the Congress would need to understand its challenges to meet them.

“To tackle a problem you have to first acknowledge there’s a problem,” he said and, in an oblique reference to Congress leader Rahul Gandhi’s functioning, added, “The approach that the media is not with you, that you are short of resources, that you can’t somehow take on the government, that the courts are not with you…doesn’t work. In the endgame it is not the might of the resources but the might of people’s support that wins elections,” noted Kishor adding that the grand old party has its own way of working and is not very open to suggestions.

Of the 316 assembly seats the Congress contested in the five states, it was leading in only 69 at 7 PM as per Election Commission trends.

That’s a strike rate of barely 21.8 pc and means nearly 8 of the 10 Congress nominees who contested lost.

With Mamata Banerjee successfully thwarting the BJP juggernaut in Bengal, and all opposition leaders, including NCP’s Sharad Pawar, Shiv Sena’s Sanjay Raut, AAP’s Arvind Kejriwal, NC’s Omar Abdullah, PDP’s Mehbooba Mufti and RJD’s Tejaswi Yadav, congratulating her, she signalled her emergence as the core of the new opposition unity.

Congress veteran and former law minister Ashwani Kumar said that in the context of West Bengal, his party needs to introspect whether given the extraordinary circumstances, it was prudent to join the anti- TMC alliance.

Although Surjewala congratulated Mamata for defeating a divisive BJP, the fact remains the Congress was part of the anti-Mamata alliance led by Left, which was routed in Bengal.  The Congress lost its minority base in Murshidabad and Malda despite allying with the radical Indian Secular Front (an alliance several Congress leaders had questioned).

Knives will now be out in the party for Rahul Gandhi, an MP from Wayanad in Kerala, where the LDF scored a record win becoming the first government in 40 years to return to power.

In Assam where Rahul and sister Priyanka Vadra campaigned principally, results were no better as incumbents BJP won despite an anti Citizenship Amendment Act narrative.

“Today’s election results have several important take aways for us. The first: It is possible to beat anti- incumbency and that people’s judgment at the relevant time is the litmus test. Mamata Banerjee has been catapulted on the national scene as a dominant agent of political change who is destined to play a major role in the unity of Opposition forces in the country. Her grit and determination to put up an indefatigable fight against the full might of the BJP have won her the  people’s admiration,” Ashwani Kumar said.

He also said that the election results have reinforced the relevance of regional parties and the absolute necessity of cooperative federalism.

The Congress for its part would need to gear up for the G 23 backlash, with internal dissent set to gain prominence in the coming days specially with Surjewala today saying the party is committed to concluding the organisational election process by June 30, as decided by the working committee this January.

The process will include the election of Congress president with Rahul Gandhi not looking like a very good candidate right now and demands for Sonia’s continuance already rebuilding.