Election results: Does Cong have what it takes to claw back to reckoning?

After the dire prediction of the exit polls on Maharastra and Haryana polls, the Congress had only a miracle and blessings of Gods to bank on. As the trends reveal, even the Gods have abandoned the party to its fate. Narendra Modi had promised a ‘Congress-mukt’ India and he is living up to it with aplomb. It is also clear that the momentum in his favour – call it wave or by any other name - has not slackened much after the BJP’s spectacular showing in the general elections of May. [caption id=“attachment_1764107” align=“alignleft” width=“380”]  Sonia Gandhi. Reuters[/caption] As this piece is being written, the BJP has a clear lead in 105 seats in Maharshtra which witnessed a multi-cornered contest for its 288 seats. In Haryana, it has placed itself in a position to form the government. The trends indicate a massive upswing in the BJP’s fortune and a sharp decline of the Congress keeping with the pan-India trend over the last two years. The Congress does not have an excuse to lean on now. It cannot hide behind the explanation that after three and two terms respectively in Maharashtra and Haryana, it is but natural for the party to lose. It would have made sense had the BJP not been scoring successive victories since 2003 in Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh or the Congress retaining its own government in Assam since 2001. An electoral defeat or a series of disappointing electoral performances does not mean the end of any party. But the critical question for the Congress is does it have the strength to claw back into reckoning. The signal so far is in the negative. It has to confront some difficult, existential questions after its defeat in the latest round of assembly elections. The dismal showing shows up the Congress top leadership as weak and ineffectual, incapable of taking risks, bold decisions and paralysed by the Modi syndrome. This would be far more dangerous for a party that is held together by the Gandhi family. Evidence on the ground suggests there has been no urgent remedial action undertaken after the party suffered the humiliation of getting only 44 seats of the 543 elective seats in the Lok Sabha and drawing a blank in as many as 19 states and UTs. The party had enough time to introspect before the Maharashtra and Haryana assembly elections but it was doing nothing. The top leadership, Sonia and Rahul, had virtually resigned to the fait accompli. There has been no brainstorming session and no large scale changes. A media strategy to take on the BJP – this has been instrumental in building the Modi myth – has been conspicuous by its absence, as has been the effort from the leadership to connect with the grassroots workers to boost their morale. What has been visible in the five months after the general election debacle is the battle between the sulking old guard and the team that Rahul wants to build for himself. Modi, despite the BJP’s losses in the bypolls in 13 states, put his reputation on line by turning the recent assembly polls as a battle between him and the rest, both Sonia and Rahul were disinclined to leading from the front. An ageing and not-too-healthy Sonia made a token appearance during the campaign. And she made sure that Rahul too addressed only a couple of rallies so that the electoral contest in Maharashtra or Haryana is not turned into a Modi vs Rahul faceoff. The signal that went out was of a national leadership that was burrowing itself in fear and unwilling to take any risks. In both Maharshtra and Haryana, the Congress did not have incompetent chief ministers; both had good credentials as development oriented individuals, still the leadership was seen as shying away from backing them to the hilt. Now the biggest question for the party is what next? Faced with a bleak future in UP and Bihar, workers had migrated to other parties in droves. This might happen in Maharashtra and Haryana too. These are difficult times for the party faithful. Many of them are confused and do not know whether they should be singing honge kamyaab ek din and hanging on to the Congress. Will the party witness the defection of middle level party leaders in large numbers too? This has already happened in several states before the election and the trickle can now become a flood. The leadership appears to have no answers or willing to even face the reality. The collapse of the Congress might have just begun.