.At present, the Congress Party does not have a single MLA in four states. These four states are Andhra Pradesh, Delhi, Nagaland and Sikkim. In these four states where 337 MLAs are elected, the Congress party does not have a single MLA.
Recently, the account of the Congress party in West Bengal was opened in the by-election held on the Sagardighi seat of West Bengal, but the MLA switched to the AITC sooner than later. Again in West Bengal assembly having strength of 294 the Congress Party has no MLA again. In spite of such activity by the AITC the Congress Party and AITC are looking for alliance under I.N.D.I.alliance. In Tripura too, the Congress party did not have a single MLA, but in the recently held assembly elections, the party’s account could be opened only with the help of the Communist Party.
At present, there are a total of 4033 MLAs in all the states of the country. It was 4120 during the existence of the state of Jammu and Kashmir, now the number has decreased to 4033 after the formation of these two Union Territories. In these 4033 seats. Post Jammu & Kashmir Delimittaion the no. of seats in legislatures has increased to 4123. The Congress party currently has only 725 MLAs, which is only 17.97 percent of the total number. In these, the number of MLAs of Congress party in Arunachal Pradesh, Goa, Manipur, Mizoram, Meghalaya, Odisha, Puducherry, Telangana, Tripura and Uttar Pradesh has been reduced to single digit. There are a total of 1373 assembly seats in all these states and the number of Congress Party MLAs has come up to 44, which is 3.20 percent. The total number of States where the Congress party has zero or single digit members has gone up to 15. In the total strength of 1710 Vidhansabha of these 15 states, the number of Congress members has come up to 44.
If we talk about the Lok Sabha elections, the Congress Party won 52 seats. Of these, the Congress party got 31 seats from three states Kerala, Tamil Nadu and Punjab. In these three states, the Congress Party along with its allies contested on 38 seats, in which it won 31 seats. In the rest of the states, the Congress Party won only 21 seats by contesting 383 seats. It should also be noted that the Congress Party contested on a total of 421 seats in the 2019 Lok Sabha elections and forfeited deposit on 148 seats, which is35.15 % of the seats contested by the party. In the last Lok Sabha elections, the Congress party had won 52 seats and came second on 209 seats. That is, the direct claim of the Congress Party has been reduced to 261 seats. In the Lok Sabha elections, the Congress Party got less than 2 percent votes in 49 seats. In 127 seats, the party got one point i.e. less than 10 percent votes. The Congress party has double digit seats in the Lok Sabha only in one state, Kerala, but in all the remaining 17 states it has single digit seats.
After the Uttar Pradesh 2022 assembly elections, the possibility of the Gandhi family winning the traditional seats of Amethi and Rae Bareilly has become very bleak. The Congress Party got only 142952 votes in the five assembly seats of Amethi Lok Sabha and it relegated to the third spot far behind BJP/NDA and the SP. The BJP got 418700 and SP got 352475 votes on Amethi seat as per 2022 UP assembly poll results on the seats fall within the Amethi LS seat. The Congress Party got 140706 votes in Rae Bareilly seat and there too the party was far behind the SP and BJP/NDA. The SP got 402179 votes and BJP/NDA got 381625 votes in Rae Bareilly seat. Considering the Congress party dismal performance in 2022 assembly poll the SP supremo Akhilesh Yadav was forced to announce that his party is considering to field candidates on Amethi and Rae Bareli LS seats too. Though SP and INC are in looking for seat adjustment under newly formed alliance.In the 2022 UP assembly elections, Congress party got less votes than NOTA on 62 assembly seats.
In the 2019 Lok Sabha elections, the Congress party and the BJP were in a direct contest on a total of 190 seats, and the Congress party had to face defeat on 175 seats. The Congress party could not get a single seat in the Lok Sabha elections from a total of 18 states or Union Territories.
In Kerala where the Congress party got 15 seats. There is unique type of politics in Kerala. In Kerala people give chance to the Congress-led UDF and the CPI(M)-led LDF alternately. This time it is the turn of the CPI(M)-led LDF in Kerala where it can win Lok Sabha seats in a big way. The Congress party has ambiguous with the CPI (M) and the Communist parties as far as alliance is concerned. While in Tripura and West Bengal the Congress and Communist parties are allies of each other, in Kerala these two parties are main rivals of each other.
Since 1982, LDF and UDF have been getting a chance to form the government election after election in Kerala, but in the 2021 Kerala assembly elections, for the first time since 1982, such an opportunity came when the power of LDF remained intact and UDF was forced to sit in the opposition again. This has happened when Rahul Gandhi is representing Kerala’s Muslim-dominated Wayanad seat in 2019. The Gandhi family is representing Kerala for the first time. In the 2019 Lok Sabha elections, Rahul Gandhi got 705034 votes, which was 64.81% of the total votes polled. Whereas in 2021 assembly elections Congress/UDF vote came down to 521825, which is 27% less than Rahul Gandhi got in Lok Sabha election. This is a test of Rahul Gandhi’s popularity.
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Plight of the Congress party can be assessed from its Meghalaya experiment during last assembly poll. The Congress party fielded MP from Shillong and former Union Minister Vincent Pala in the northeastern state of Meghalaya as the party feared that the party may get zero seats like many other states. But while Congress got 5 seats in Meghalaya, Shillong’s MP Vincent Pala lost his own election. It can also be seen as a test of the popularity of the MPs of the Congress party. The by-election for the Sangrur Lok Sabha seat after Bhagwant Mann becoming the Chief Minister had brought a lot of worry for the Congress party in its stronghold of Punjab.
In Sangrur in the 2019 Lok Sabha elections, the Congress party stood second on the Sangrur seat with 3,03,350 votes, while in the 2022 by-election, the Congress party got just 79,668 votes.Even the INC lost its deposit during Sangrur LS by-poll. Like Sangrur the Congress party bite the dust on Jalandhar Lok Sabha seat, where the by-election was held due to demise of Congress Party MP Santokh Singh Choudhary during the Bharat Jodo Yatra. The INC was winning the seat since 1999 even by putting different candidates. The INC didnot take any chance and put his widow to play emotional card. But the INC lost the seat for first time since 1999. The results of the seats of Sangrur and Jalandhar brought dismay to the Congress party in Punjab, where they performed well in 2019 LS poll.
The impact of Bharat Jodo Yatra can be assessed in the by-election of Munugode legislative assembly of Telangana. The Congress party had captured this assembly seat by securing 97239 votes in the 2018 assembly elections, even in the 2019 Lok Sabha elections, the Congress party stood first on this seat with 79843 votes. But in the 2022 by-election, the Congress party got only 23894 votes on this assembly seat and the party’s security was also forfeited. It should be noted that this by-election was held after passing of Rahul Gandhi’s Bharat Jodo Yatra through Telangana.
If we analyze the party-wise and alliance-wise performance on assembly seats in Loksabha Election 2019, we find that while BJP was able to establish lead on 2087 (50.65%) seats while the NDA was able to establish lead on 2412 (58.40%) seats. The Congress party was able to establish lead on only 609 (14.78 %) seats, while the UPA was able to establish lead on 861 (20.89 %) seats on assembly seats.
Recently, assembly by-elections were held on two seats in Maharashtra. The Congress won one seat and the BJP also won one seat. By looking at the votes cast on both the seats, BJP/NDA is ahead of Congress/MVA by more than 25000 votes.
The Congress party was very happy with the victory of Himachal Pradesh, it was also natural for them because they got the taste of victory after a long time. But it is also worth mentioning that the Congress was ahead of the BJP by only 37,974 votes in the entire state. The Congress party suffered a crushing defeat in the assembly election in Gujarat which held along with Himachal Pradesh. In Gujarat the INC has had its worst performance ever. Off course Karnataka assembly election brought positive news for the Congress Party. After Karnataka assembly poll the INC is arranging meetings with its allies. The Congress party didnot venture for such meeting as it was not even accepted by its allies. But its extremely tough for the INC to maintain the momentum it got from Karnataka to continue.
The INC performance in three States of Kerala, Punjab & Tamilnadu. The INC won 31 seats by contesting 38 seats in these three states. While out of these states the INC won 21 seats by contesting 383 seats.
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