Opinion Want to know what’s wrong with the Congress? Look at its reaction to Bihar loss

The Bihar results point toward the persistent decline of the Congress in the state. In the 2020 assembly polls, as part of the Mahagathbandhan, Congress had fielded candidates in 70 constituencies. It eventually won 19, polling a mere 9.6 per cent votes. It was blamed for overstating its social and geographical reach, to secure a disproportionate number of constituencies as part of the seat-sharing deal, and pulling the opposition alliance down.

In this election, they didn’t perform any better. In fact, it has fared much worse. It contested 61 seats, but voting trends available till noon indicated that it is leading only in 5 seats.

American sociologist Theda Skocpol, in her studies, said that to have dynamism, an organisation needed a proper ideology, an inspiring leadership, a mass base, and a throbbing structure. In Bihar, and elsewhere in the country, the principal opposition party has exhibited none of these characteristics.

The Congress, under its de facto leader, Rahul Gandhi, was reduced to being a twin agenda party – caste census and vote chori. He kept on harping on the themes, oblivious of the fact that the Nitish Kumar government in the state had already conducted a caste survey way back in 2022, and that the Modi government at the Centre had already ordered a nationwide caste count, along with the national census. His attempts to blame the Election Commission for carrying out the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) on the eve of the assembly polls in Bihar failed to cut any ice with the people. Indeed, journalists who travelled across the state to cover the assembly polls did not see any outrage among the people over allegations of vote chori.

Beyond offering optics by diving into a pond to display his sympathy for the cause of the fishing community, or the Mallahs, Rahul Gandhi did nothing. He disappeared from the state’s horizon after his initial foray, leaving his party in a lurch. Contrast this with the role of the BJP top brass. PM Modi, Amit Shah and the party’s national president, J P Nadda, led from the front, motivating the cadre relentlessly.

The Congress, in terms of its ideological moorings, has swung dangerously to the Left, leaving the ordinary workers of the party confused. Old-timers in the party lament the fact that, during the freedom struggle, their party was an umbrella organisation, representing all ideological hues – from the nationalist stream to the Leftist forces. Not any longer.

The party’s top brass has also consistently refused to discern the social dynamics prevailing in Bihar. While it has forfeited the support of its traditional vote bank, comprising the upper castes, Dalits, and Muslims, there was no attempt to reclaim it. It aggravated its problems by replacing its state president literally on the eve of the assembly polls.

The Congress leadership took several other missteps. The general budget, presented by Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman earlier this year, had made a generous allocation for Bihar, in view of its special situation. The Congress, strangely enough, criticised the budgetary allocations, with the party’s communications in charge, Jairam Ramesh taking the lead, observing caustically that Bihar seemed to have received a “bonanza’’ of announcements in view of the impending assembly polls.

Observers in Bihar felt that the Congress, by doing so, had scored a self-goal, reinforcing its image as an “anti-Bihar’’ party.

Way back in 1948, Father of the Nation, Mahatma Gandhi, had advocated the dismantling of the Congress as a political party. He was, it is evident, getting increasingly disillusioned with the behaviour of the Congressmen who had assumed office in various parts of the country. Perhaps it is time to execute his last wish.

The writer is an MLC in Bihar, and in-charge of Mizoram BJP