The Decline of Congress in Delhi: From dominance to defeat

Delhi politics is a big lesson for the Congress party. Delhi is one of the examples of how the Congress party can fall from the pinnacle to the ground in a short span of time. Other such states include Andhra Pradesh, West Bengal and others.

Delhi used to be a stronghold of the BJP in the early 90s. But with time, the BJP weakened and the Congress party took its place. In 1998, the Congress party nominated Sheila Dikshit for the post of Chief Minister and the Congress party formed the government. Under the leadership of Sheila Dikshit, the Congress party was successful in forming the government three times in a row.

The performance of the BJP in the Lok Sabha elections has always been good, except in 2004 and 2009, but the best performance of the BJP in the Assembly after 1993 was seen only in 2013.

The main reason for the Congress party’s weakening performance in Delhi is the party’s complete dependence on a particular face. If that face gets separated for any reason, then the position of the Congress party starts weakening. A similar situation is seen at the central level, where the Congress party is dependent only on the leadership of the Gandhi family, especially Rahul Gandhi.

In every state, the Congress party appoints a special leader who is close to the Gandhi family, and he is given complete responsibility by the party in the state. Delhi is an example. Sheila Dikshit was the closest to the Gandhi family and Sonia Gandhi kept her on her post even after suppressing the voice of rebellion against her in the party. The result of this was that Sheila Dikshit’s stature became bigger than the party in Delhi. Then once Sheila Dikshit got separated from power, the Congress party almost ended in Delhi.

In the 2013 Assembly elections, the Congress party won eight seats in the Delhi assembly elections and forfeited deposits on the same number of seats. However, in the 2015 Assembly election, the Congress party could not win even a single seat and lost the deposit of 62 seats.

In the Lok Sabha elections, while the Congress party won 6 out of 7 seats in Delhi in the 2004 Lok Sabha election, it won all the seven seats in the 2009 Lok Sabha election. However, the Congress party could not save itself from the political upheaval of 2013 in Delhi, and after 2014, Congress has not been able to even open its account either in the Delhi Assembly or Lok Sabha from Delhi.