Last week when Congress’ leader Rahul Gandhi concluded his pan-India march in Mumbai, the limelight shifted, for the first time since the onset of run-up to 2024 polls, towards the grand old party of India. The Congress, the incumbent BJP’s principal challenger and the main opposition party, political pundits read, will certainly improve its poll performance, however, its gains will be too marginal to dislodge the Prime Minister Narendra Modi-led Bharatiya Janata Party from power.
The Friday Times has collected input from correspondents and staffers of various newspapers, TV news channels, poll consultancies, political party functionaries and independent political observers to size up the support and possible performance of the Congress in almost all the states where the party is contesting elections.
The Congress is contesting (tentatively) 250 seats in 22 states and 6 Union Territories. Besides, the Congress is in a tie-up with several regional parties in the Indian National Developmental Inclusive Alliance (dubbed INDIA through its backronym). It’s an alliance of almost 25-28 parties, loosely united or committed, making it so that the Congress’ chances hang in the balance, for better or worse.
Some pre-poll surveys conducted in the first three weeks of March have also projected almost similar post-poll propositions.
Short of Target
In 2014 and in 2019, the Congress won 44 and 52 seats respectively – its worst performance in its 138-year history. It even failed to secure the numbers to claim the Leader of the Opposition position in the Lok Sabha, the Lower House of Indian Parliament, which is elected every five years.
The Congress was in a direct fight with BJP on around 200 seats in these two elections. BJP trounced it on 174 seats in 2014 and on 185 seats in 2019. These were in Chhattisgarh, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, Maharashtra, Karnataka, Gujarat, Haryana, Assam etc.
Thus, according to a senior Congress member, the party has focused to secure at least 60-70 seats out of these 200. “Only then it will be counted as a Congress revival and fightback, and the party will be able to reach the mark of 100 seats,” he said. He, however, was not sure that in case of his party being ditched by its own leaders and alliance partners at the very outset of the election, how can the party hope to put up a fight and finish near the target line?
Senior political analyst Amitabh Tiwari, in his pre-poll calculations for India Today magazine has said that in the worst-case scenario, the Congress could end up with 21 seats - a staggering loss of 31 seats compared to 2019
People tracking elections on the ground also predict a marginal advantage for the grand old party, but they also say that the party is wasting a golden opportunity to cash in the ruling BJP’s weaknesses. Kubool Ahmed, a political analyst who has been traversing North India to gauge the mood of the electorate, says that the Congress was poised to score sufficiently well a month ago. “The BJP was grappling with reports of sharp anti-incumbency. The INDIA alliance, headed by the Congress, was gelling well. There were genuine jitters in the BJP camp.
However, instead of BJP, it was INDIA that started coming apart. Its partners like the Trinamul Congress of Mamata Banerjee of West Bengal decided to go solo. Its Leftist partners actually turned against it. The alliance’s purported PM candidate, Nitish Kumar of Bihar, jettisoned it to join the BJP’s NDA alliance. Many Congress leaders in different provinces deserted the party. The party failed to amalgamate key caste-based parties like Bahujan Samaj Party of Mayawati. The bank accounts linked to the party were frozen, making it cash-strapped just when it needed to pump in money into its organizational veins in the middle of the nation-wide campaigning. The Enforcement Directorate, the agency that probes financial misappropriations, started nabbing more and more of its and leaders of its allies. And the scenario changed,” summed up Ahmed.
He and many others covering the election campaigns in different states shared their estimates about Congress’ chances in the upcoming polls. According to their projections, the party, in the present stage by March 20, will be able to secure 65-70 seats, improving its tally from 52 of 2019.
The overall breakup of Congress’ likely victories in different states is likely to look like this: Telangana (7-8), Kerala (15), Tamil Nadu (8), Karnataka (4-6, one survey on March 21 predicted Congress winning 17 seats here), Andhra Pradesh (2), Maharashtra (5, a survey on March 21 predicted Congress, in alliance, winning 28 seats out 48), Chhattisgarh (5), Madhya Pradesh (2-3), Gujarat (0), Rajasthan (3-4), Haryana (2), Delhi (0), Uttarakhand (0), Himachal Pradesh (1-2), UP (2, in best case scenario), Bihar (2), Jharkhand (1-2), West Bengal (1-2), Assam (3-4), Manipur (1) and Puducherry (1).
Senior political analyst Amitabh Tiwari, in his pre-poll calculations for India Today magazine has said that in the worst-case scenario, the Congress could end up with 21 seats - a staggering loss of 31 seats compared to 2019 - if it loses a five per cent vote share across seats, and if its nearest rival laps that up. “In its best-case scenario, the Congress could end up with 97 seats (just short of 100 and a gain of 45 seats compared to 2019) if it gains a five per cent vote share across seats at the expense of its nearest rival. Thirty-two of these gains will likely come at the BJP’s expense,” he added in his analysis.
BJP Down, Congress Up?
Pundits are drawing the electoral horoscope of the Congress taking into account various factors. Chief among them are anti-incumbency and charges of corruption against the Modi government. For veteran journalist-author Ram Sharan Joshi, the ruling BJP has committed a cardinal sin of camouflaging its cronyism and corruption from the Indian public. Joshi told The Friday Times that now when reports of corruption have come out in the open in the form of Electoral Bonds revelations, it will explode on the BJP.
"The RSS is considered by the Hindus as an epitome of discipline, moral values, honesty and simple life with high ideals. But Modi’s style of governance turns out to be contrary to the value system adopted and being practiced by the organization since its birth in 1925. The charges against the Modi government will certainly erode the credibility of the RSS in the eyes of common Hindus."
Electoral bonds are a financial instrument that permit corporate funding of political parties. Last week, at the order of the Supreme Court of India, the State bank of India revealed who contributed what and to which political party. According to the SBI submissions, almost 80% of political donations, made by various corporate entities (SBI will make full disclosure in June) went into the BJP’s kitty. It means, as per allegations, the party must have worked for the interests of donating business houses on a quid pro quo basis.
“The Sanatan psyche of Indian masses has been to see their king or ruler above all vices and misdeeds since the rule of Lord Ram in the Treta Yug. The Electoral Bond expose has severely damaged the moral, cultural and political edifice of BJP’s much-hyped ‘Kalyugi Ramraj’ which has been craftily carved out by PM Modi and his lieutenant Home Minister Amit Shah. The Electoral Bond ‘scam’ has disrobed PM Modi of his ideal image of being “chowkidar”, “Na Khaoonga Na Khane Doonga”, “Zero Tolerance” and other pompous posturing. In my view, the consequences of the electoral bonds tsunami is bound to dent the image of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) – the parent body of the BJP. Modi’s original image is that of a RSS Pracharak (volunteer-preacher of RSS). The RSS is considered by the Hindus as an epitome of discipline, moral values, honesty and simple life with high ideals. But Modi’s style of governance turns out to be contrary to the value system adopted and being practiced by the organization since its birth in 1925. The charges against the Modi government will certainly erode the credibility of the RSS in the eyes of common Hindus,” said Joshi.
Joshi’s estimate gains credence as BJP’s poll machinery consists of a large number of RSS functionaries that spread out all over India to seek support for the party and double as party workers so long as the elections last. In the case of public opinion turning against the BJP because of the Electoral Bonds allegations, the Congress will be a natural beneficiary.
Assembling an apt alliance and finding candidates seems to be Congress’ Achilles’ heel. Till the writing of this article, the party was not able to announce a candidate even for a safe seat and a Gandhi family pocket-borough, Rae Bareli.
However, measuring the chances of the Congress, Joshi is not very sure. “I can say that the numbers of the Congress will definitely increase, but it will depend on how the party slogs out in the battle. The chips are down for the BJP because of several reasons, and it will be weakened too in this. But its graph will plummet only so much as the opposition will be able to capitalize on its weaknesses and cobble up befitting electoral alliances and put up the right candidates,” he said.
Assembling an apt alliance and finding candidates seems to be Congress’ Achilles’ heel. Till the writing of this article, the party was not able to announce a candidate even for a safe seat and a Gandhi family pocket-borough, Rae Bareli. There were murmurs that Priyanka Gandhi will succeed her mother Sonia Gandhi in her debut in electoral politics. Meanwhile, some in the Congress circle can be heard saying that Rahul and Priyanka’s estranged cousin Varun Gandhi, a BJP MP from UP, can be roped in and fielded from the family bastion.
Such uncertainty looms large over the party, even as the election dates are approaching fast, and all the other parties are finalizing their candidates. If the party fails to tighten its belt on time, the battle may be lost before it even begins.