The Maharashtra and Haryana assembly election results offer the Opposition, especially the Congress, some reason to cheer. After the drubbing in the general election a few months ago, it has crawled back to relevance in both states.
In Haryana, the Congress stood in the way of the BJP winning a simple majority whereas in Maharashtra, the BJP’s final tally is likely to be significantly less than its strength in 2014. Yet, while the results are a wake-up call for the BJP, the Congress would be mistaken if it reads them as a sign of its own resurgence.
By all accounts, the Congress has been the indirect beneficiary of anti-incumbency in these states. In Haryana, the party has made considerable gains from 2014, but it may have more to do with it being the default option for voters angry with the Manohar Lal Khattar government.
A divided house, the Congress was rocked by resignations and desertions till days before polling. The party organisation is in disarray, its district units remain headless. If it has been thinning organisationally, it has been missing in action politically, staying away from street mobilisations in the past five years despite the growing stress in the agriculture sector and disquiet among youth over joblessness.
In Maharashtra, the NCP has won more seats than its parent body and is poised to be the main Opposition party. Here, the Congress hitched its wagon to NCP chief Sharad Pawar, who, at 80, was the Opposition’s star campaigner. In fact, the party could learn from Pawar how to turn adversity into advantage and hold the fort against odds. Maharashtra was rocked by protests over farm distress, unemployment, social discrimination and so on in the past five years.
Yet here too, the Congress was missing in action even as a large section of the population turned restive. The party’s failure to do its job as the Opposition and engage with the public is now reflected in its failure to make bigger gains from the clear anti-incumbency in the two states.
The Congress leadership may well conclude that electoral success is cyclical and that its turn will come when the BJP exhausts itself. Such smug optimism would be misplaced. The Congress is no more seen to be the natural party of governance, that mantle seem to have shifted to the BJP.
The party will need to sort out leadership issues, revitalise its cadre, and voice public concerns by mobilising on the streets if it wishes to be in the reckoning more than it is at the moment.
