Congress lost badly in Bihar assembly elections where it’s hyped Rahul Gandhi lead election campaign based on the ‘Vote chori’ theme, but miserably failed to convince the voters. Congress contested 61 seats and won 6 and got 8.7 per cent vote share, which is far below the party’s expectation. At one time the Congress was expecting majority for their I.N.D.I.A coalition and was even dreaming of having their own Chief Minister for Bihar at the expense of Yasaswi Yadav, a more popular leader of RJD. The delayed announcement of fighting under the leadership of Yasasvi Yadav has caused enough damage to the campaign of their block.
Even after a fortnight after the results are out the Congress is not ready to concede, gracefully as a democratic party their defeat in the election, but is trying to build a narrative of ECI role in NDA victory, purely to protect its top leaders from the blame for the defeat. Not that the Congress had the history of taking the defeats in the earlier in as many as 95 elections held during the last 12 years. Congress leaders are continuously searching for silly excuses like vote chori, despite the rejection of that vote chori theme in the Bihar.
By sticking to its worn out track, Congress is moving in a self-destructive mode just to protect their prince Rahul Gandhi. In its umpteenth attempt to launch Rahul Gandhi, the party leaders announced December 14 rally in Delhi once again on the alleged vote theft. However, no other member of I.N.D.I Alliance is ready to associate with that rally and get further ridiculed by holding the on to vote chori theme. Since party’s top priority is to protect Rahul Gandhi from the electoral damage party suffered under his leadership and other I.N.D.I.A parties are not ready to join, the Congress is compelled to call their proposed rally as “a purely Congress affair”. One wonder whether the proposed Ramlila Maidan show will really take off as the Bihar unit of that party itself is in turmoil with revolts and suspensions.
Six leaders of Congress in Bihar got orders of expulsion on the alleged anti party activities including their allegation of ticket racketing against party high command. These expulsions came amid growing internal turmoil following the party rout and the growing dissidents challenging the decisions of party high command on the candidate’s selection and the way election campaign was conducted. The dissident group accuse the leadership of “expelling them to deflect the blame from the top brass for its blunders”. The attempt to suppress dissidents through expulsions has sparked fresh controversy as they called the so called disciplinary action is a “scapegoating tactic to shield senior leaders from the accountability”.
Protect Rahul Gandhi at any cost is the main theme that is on in the post-Bihar fiasco scenario. Even after near hundred failed launches the party is surprisingly gambling with the family lineage centric image of Rahul Gandhi. The Congress M.P. from Bihar Tariq Anwar, in his attempt to save Rahul Gandhi, started a campaign of blaming Allavaru, the party observer for this election. While the Karnataka and Telangana victories of Congress were credited to the strategies and campaign of Rahul Gandhi including his marathon walk across the country and Allavaru, as a strategist who created the victory through freebies. But as defeat stared in Bihar on party, Allavaru is blamed leaving Rahul Gandhi unscathed.
The high command proposed Ramalila Maidan show is less out of conviction on vote theft but more at remaining relevant in the I.N.D.I.A block. As Congress reached to its lowest web and pulled its partner RJD to the abyss, the other regional parties who are till now believed that Congress can help them as and when it heads the coalition at Delhi, started distancing itself from the Congress. For RJD it became a burden to carry Congress on its shoulders and RJD fell flat in the electoral arena. Now it is the turn of Samajwadi Party (SP) leader Akhilesh Yadav to decide whether to get fatigued and suffer by carrying the unpopular and unproductive on his shoulder and suffer as Yasawi Yadav suffered in Bihar. Reports suggest that Akhilesh is under pressure from his people to disassociate with I.N.D.I.A and follow the formula of west Bengal CM Mamata Banerjee and AAP leader Aravind Kejriwal of fighting alone and taking on BJP.
Electoral friendship with Congress is not helping SP as Yadav votes are getting transferred to Congress while the Congress leaders are failing to convince their supporters to vote for SP. It was because of this successful transfer of Akhilesh’s support that Sonia Gandhi and Rahul Gandhi could get elected to Lok Sabha. Had it been a straight fight between Congress and BJP in Amethi and Rai Bareli there was no way they could get elected. The core vote base of Congress in UP got eroded in the post 1996 Hindutva wave that swept BJP into power. It is now felt that by helping Congress to win few seats, in fact the SP is getting weakened in certain districts. By taking Congress as the partner, even if I.N.D.I.A wins the UP, it becomes a burden at the time of ministerial distribution and after such a accommodation the Congress can get strength in the state at the expense of SP.
In DMK, one section has already started pressurizing its leader M.K. Stalin not to keep the company of a looser in the up-coming assembly elections. The only factor which till now kept DMK in I.N.D.I.A group was its hope Congress recovering in the North India and forming a coalition government at Delhi, as that party felt the need to have helpful party at the Centre. As the hopes of Congress heading a government fades fast, the DMK is preparing to change its strategy to- no assembly seats for Congress but definite seats during the Lok Sabha- a formula, the old formula followed by Karunanidhi, MGR during Indira Gandhi regime.
With the kind of negative image Congress is accumulating due to the political crisis in Karnataka, the regional parties are no more interested in having Congress leadership for I.N.D.I.A and are in way searching for suitable way out to distance from the opposition camp. Such a distancing may get firmed up before the scheduled elections to the Tamil Nadu and West Bengal elections. Kerala is a peculiar state where the Left parties oppose Congress in the state but friend in West Bengal and other states in the name of I.N.D.I.A. The kind of results the Congress got in Kerala in 2024 Lok Sabha elections may not get repeated in 2026 assembly elections. Kerala faction of CPM is opposing the party’s closeness to Congress. So Left leaving the Congress camp leading to the collapse of I.N.D.I.A tent and that will complete the isolation of that party in the national politics. Any failure to solve the Congress crisis in Karnataka without further fuss means signaling the dormant dissident activity within the party units of Himachal Pradesh and Karnataka. That way the party is clearing the way for self-imposed political isolation and consequence of that is not that difficult to guess. So nation will witness new politics in 2026 without much influential role for Congress.
