BARELY MONTHS before the Lok Sabha elections, the Congress on Sunday found itself almost wiped out of North India in its worst record ever, with its footprint in the Hindi heartland reduced to a tiny speck - the state of Himachal Pradesh with just four Lok Sabha seats. The grand old party is now back to the drawing board with no clear answers or solutions. The last time the Congress was in power in only one Hindi-speaking state was in 1998, when Sonia Gandhi took over as the party president. The party was then in power in three states – Madhya Pradesh, Odisha and Mizoram. While the Congress is once again confined to just three states – Telangana and Karnataka in the South, and Himachal Pradesh in the North – it faces a bigger crisis now, especially since its new-found template of promising welfare schemes (which was successful in Himachal Pradesh and Karnataka) and the OBC caste card has failed. The Telangana victory was a consolation but the defeats - especially the scale and magnitude - in Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh and Rajasthan have stunned the party leadership. And it is not just the Congress, the multi-party INDIA alliance too is staring at a turbulent future with most of the Opposition parties appearing jittery over whether the Congress would be able to mount a challenge to the BJP in the North. For the Congress, the defeat was humiliating. The party was so sure of its victories in Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh - and even held a glimmer of hope in Rajasthan - that the high command had sent observers “to coordinate the meetings of the Congress Legislature Party” in these states on Saturday itself. The party's initial assessment of the Madhya Pradesh results was that the BJP “brilliantly countered the anti-incumbency argument against the Chief Minister by fielding Union ministers and MPs”, while the Congress campaign lacked energy and vigour. “Kamal Nath showed a very tired and fatigued face… the same old leadership. nothing fresh. Our promises largely mirrored Shivraj Singh Chouhan’s welfare schemes. a minor tweak here or a minor tweak there,” a party leader said. But all that is in hindsight. The Congress had powerful leaders in all the three states - Bhupesh Baghel and T S Singh Deo in Chhattisgarh; Kamal Nath and Digvijaya Singh in Madhya Pradesh; and Ashok Gehlot and Sachin Pilot in Rajasthan - but could not match up to the BJP and its Modi-centric campaign. The Indian Express spoke to several Congress leaders for their initial assessment, and almost all of them struggled to find answers. “One needs to analyse whether the Ram Mandir and Sanatan Dharma row had an impact,” said a party leader. Another said the OBC pitch and demand for caste census, perhaps, backfired. “We have to analyse whether this whole OBC talk by Rahul Gandhi consolidated the upper caste votes. While A Revanth Reddy delivered in Telangana, the OBC chief ministers could not (Ashok Gehlot and Bhupesh Baghel are from OBC communities). Is there a message there,” one leader said. A section of the Congress saw hope even in devastation. “Had the Congress performed strongly, we would have spurned the INDIA alliance. Now they will not spurn it. That, for me, is a silver lining,” said a party leader. There were some harsh conclusions too. “The campaigns by Rahul and Priyanka Gandhi Vadra are not making any difference, barring in the South,” one leader said. The immediate challenge for the Congress is regaining the trust and confidence of its INDIA allies. Most of them are upset with the Congress for stalling the momentum gained by the bloc after the meetings in Patna, Bengaluru and Mumbai. The Congress was so sure of its victories in Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh and Telangana that it kept them out of the campaign and stonewalled attempts by regional parties to bring it to the seat-sharing negotiating table. The Congress's hope was that a good showing in the Assembly elections would give it an upper hand in talks. But its wipeout in the Hindi heartland could embolden the regional parties to stand up to the Congress, as many of them may consider it a baggage. “The regional parties, I can assure you, will clock a good performance in 2024. The DMK will win in Tamil Nadu, the TMC will do well in West Bengal… the AAP will do better in Punjab… It is the Congress which has to up its game. after all, it is in a direct battle with the BJP in most of the heartland seats… It is an irony that the party which claims itself as the leader of the alliance is the bloc’s weakest link,” said a non-Congress leader. “This is the defeat of the Congress party. We are sorry that it happened just before the Lok Sabha elections. This is not the defeat of the INDIA bloc. The meeting that they have now called on December 6… it should have been called earlier. They should have taken into confidence the constituents of the INDIA bloc, and they would have campaigned for the Congress,” senior JD(U) leader K C Tyagi told The Indian Express. “In the three states, it is more of a failure of the Congress than a success story of the BJP,” TMC spokesperson Kunal Ghosh said in a social media post. “TMC is the party which can provide leadership in the battle to defeat the BJP in the country,” he said. Some Congress leaders admitted that the party lacked a charismatic central face who could counter Modi. “We have been trying to keep the campaign in states strictly local… Because the BJP turns elections into a presidential-type contest with Modi on one side…we managed to win Karnataka and Himachal Pradesh with this strategy…the BJP would, of course, frame the 2024 election as Modi versus who… I don’t think the Congress or the INDIA bloc has answers,” said a party leader. Smarting under the defeat, the Congress remembered the INDIA alliance. “The Congress party participated in the elections of these four states with full force. I express my gratitude to our countless workers. Without getting disheartened by this defeat, we, along with INDIA parties, have to start preparing for the Lok Sabha elections with double enthusiasm,” party president Mallikarjun Kharge said in his first response. As the trends became clear of a Congress wipeout in the North, a cryptic tweet by party MP from Tamil Nadu, Karti Chidambaram, summed up the mood in the party. “The South!,” he posted on X. Rahul, on his part, said the battle of ideology will continue. “Exactly 20 years ago, the Indian National Congress had lost the state elections in Chhattisgarh, Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan, while winning only Delhi. But within a few months, the party bounced back and went on to emerge as the single largest party in the Lok Sabha polls and formed the government at the Centre. It is with hope, confidence and a firm sense of resolve and resilience that the Indian National Congress prepares for the forthcoming Lok Sabha polls,” Congress communication head Jairam Ramesh said.
