Opinion Loser talk
By blaming its electoral setbacks on its state leaders alone, Congress does itself a disservice.
The scale of the BJP’s victories is remarkable but the Congress’s relegation to the third spot in Maharashtra and Haryana — states in which it held office for three and two terms respectively — came as no surprise. The party’s campaign in the two states reeked of defeatism. Sensing the political mood, undoubtedly, the Congress’s central leadership left the campaign to state leaders. In contrast, with Prime Minister Narendra Modi campaigning hard and the party machinery working to ensure his charisma translated into votes, the BJP was evidently fighting to win. The BJP held over 500 meetings in Maharashtra and Modi spoke at 27 rallies while the Congress did about 350 meetings, of which Rahul Gandhi attended only six.
An election campaign is a complex political and managerial exercise that involves building smart alliances and social coalitions. The Congress seems to have lost its political instinct as well as its managerial savvy, even as Modi’s BJP, under its new chief, Amit Shah, appears to have rediscovered and reinvented both. If and when the Congress dissects the election debacle, it would help the party to go beyond the convenience of blaming its state leadership alone.
But is the Congress up for soul-searching? It constituted the A.K. Antony panel to analyse the general election defeat, but the report, still kept secret, is reportedly silent on the party’s top leadership. Once the centrepiece of India’s one-party dominance system, the party is now restricted to Uttarakhand and Himachal Pradesh in the north, Karnataka and Kerala in the south and the Northeast. Its vote share has fallen below 20 per cent in Maharashtra and past experience — in states like Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Tamil Nadu and West Bengal — shows that the party has never been able to retrieve lost ground in states once its vote share slipped below that mark. Yet, no one in the party seems willing to stand up and speak to the crisis within.
Party leaders may argue that electoral success and defeat is cyclical, but there are growing indications that if and when voters look for alternatives to BJP dominance, they may not necessarily see the Congress. In the past, regional parties have spread into the space occupied by the Congress and they may well do so in future unless the party rouses itself and shows some signs of life. It could begin by rethinking its role and responsibility as an opposition in the time of Modi.
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