The recent elections in West Bengal and Tamil Nadu were not pleasant for the Congress. Even though she is now the partner in power in Tamil Nadu, the alliance in which she contested the elections was defeated. In West Bengal, the Congress, which was sometimes friends with the Left and sometimes with the Trinamool Congress, could not till the end decide on which agenda it was contesting the elections. This caused her loss and she could not become strong in both the states. Earlier, the same thing had happened in Bihar and till the end the distribution of seats in the Grand Alliance was not clear. Now it seems that Congress has not learned any lesson from these three states and has made a similar mistake in Uttar Pradesh and has set out on the ‘Dilemma Highway’.
In the 2024 Lok Sabha elections, Congress, which contested the Lok Sabha elections in alliance with the Samajwadi Party, got tremendous benefits. Congress, which won only one seat in Uttar Pradesh in 2019, managed to win 6 seats in 2024. The main reason for this was that the seats were distributed on time and the candidates were selected with the consent of both the parties. Barring a few seats, the vote transfer work was done well and together they defeated the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in the state where the Ram temple was inaugurated just a few months ago.
Is Congress in a dilemma?
In Uttar Pradesh, different factions of the Congress party are taking different opinions. Some leaders want to remain with the Samajwadi Party and strengthen themselves by contesting the seats allotted to them. On the other hand, there are some leaders who want to go with Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) in an attempt to bring together Dalit and Brahmin votes. In this matter, the party is not able to decide what to do next. Congress had jumped alone into the 2022 assembly elections and its candidates had won only two seats. Earlier in 2017, there was an alliance between Congress and Samajwadi Party and after fighting more than 100 seats, Congress won only 7.
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The effect of this confusion of Congress is that the party cadre is still not clear as to what it has to do next. Assembly elections are next year and from time to time both the parties are making statements against each other. Even though both the parties are still saying that they will fight the elections together, this harmony is not visible on the ground. Akhilesh Yadav himself has taken a jibe at Congress through gestures and the Congress leadership has also not shown any clarity regarding the upcoming elections.
A huge mistake was made in Bihar
The Congress party had demanded 60 seats in the Bihar assembly elections. Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) did not agree on this and the matter did not work out. Candidates from both the parties were fielded on many seats. Later, sometimes it was called a friendly fight and sometimes some candidates even withdrew their names. However, the atmosphere turned sour in favor of the Grand Alliance. The alliance appeared so disintegrated that people voted for the strong looking National Democratic Alliance (NDA) and the Grand Alliance suffered a crushing defeat.
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Since then, no review meeting of the Grand Alliance has been held in Bihar and the distance between the two parties has increased further. This is surprising because Tejashwi was seen with Rahul Gandhi during his visit to Bihar and with the consent of Congress, Tejashwi Yadav was declared the chief ministerial candidate.
Didn’t even learn from Bengal and Tamil Nadu
Congress did not appear unanimous in West Bengal and Tamil Nadu. When there was talk of alliance with the Left in West Bengal, someone even suggested joining hands with Trinamool. In the end, the situation became such that Congress neither went with Trinamool Congress nor did it form an alliance with the Left. The result again remained the same and Congress was reduced to only 2 assembly seats. There was no clarity from the Congress even at the strategic level. Sometimes Rahul Gandhi spoke to Abhishek Banerjee on phone and sometimes he started publicly criticizing Mamata Banerjee’s government.
Similar situation was seen in Tamil Nadu also. In Tamil Nadu, one section wanted an alliance with Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) while the other wanted to go with Tamilaga Vetri Kazhagam (TVK). Ultimately it was decided to go with DMK and this alliance was defeated. Fortunately, Vijay’s party was in a position to form the government and Congress decided to go with it. Now his alliance with DMK has broken and he has announced to join TVK.
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In such a situation, Congress’s strategy has failed miserably in three states. Despite this, he has adopted the same path in Uttar Pradesh. In such a situation, it remains to be seen what Congress decides in the upcoming elections and with whom it goes in Uttar Pradesh.
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