Aditi tandon
Tribune news service
New Delhi, November 12
It was another anxious day for Congress that emerged as the main loser in the Bihar elections and underperformed in the 59 segment by voting.
Of the 129 seats, the great old party contested in Bihar and in all electoral districts by vote, won only 28, losing 41 of the 59 elections to the saffron party. The BJP, by contrast, contested 180 seats in Bihar and bypolls combined and snatched 115.
With Congress toppling another ally in Bihar, the party’s bargaining power could well erode if it fails to carry its own weight.
Shiv Sena’s Sanjay Raut said Thursday that Congress dragged the RJD into Bihar and that Tejashwi Yadav could have been prime minister had it not been for Congress.
While Congress blamed electoral fraud, EVMs and AIMIM-BSP combined for their beating in Bihar, the fact is that it failed to change the recent history of dragging electoral partners across states.
In Bihar, Congress won 70 seats as part of the RJD-Congress-Left alliance and won 19.
This was a significant drop from 2015, when Congress had won 27 of the 41 seats in which it fought. The RJD emerged as the largest party in Bihar to stand firm, while the left recorded astonishing results by winning 16 of the 29 seats it fought.
With Bihar absent, it would be difficult for Congress to reach tough political deals with the left in Bengal and the DMK in Tamil Nadu in the next election cycle.
In Assam, too, the party would need to work overtime to find allies and redefine strategy, especially after AIMIM’s Asadudin Owaisi demonstrated in Bihar that Muslim consolidation behind “secular forces” could be taken for granted.
In Assam, Congress has often relied on AIUDF’s Badrudin Ajmal to consolidate minority support.
Meanwhile, the Bihar results reflect the past performance of the Congress as an alliance partner in Uttar Pradesh and Maharashtra.
In the 2017 UP polls, Congress fought 105 seats in alliance with the Samajwadi Party and won just seven.
Recently in Maharashtra, Congress contested 147 seats and won 44 in association with the NCP, which fought in 121 segments and won 54.
Although Congress did well in Jharkhand, where JMM was its ally, the party remained a minor partner there.
Yesterday’s results could also point to potential challenges for Rahul Gandhi, who was the main congressional star activist in Bihar and uniquely engineered the party’s anti-BJP offensive around COVID, the migration crisis, unemployment and economic decline.
Gandhi’s anti-prime minister Narendra Modi narrative did not resonate with voters and this could spell the resurgence of latent rumors within Congress against the party’s first family.
Already 23 leaders, who stirred Gandhi’s pot recently by seeking reforms and elections for party positions, are waiting to make their next moves.
The results from Bihar and MP could well provide fresh forage.
