Congress blames everyone but itself: Voter-list politics masks leadership crisis

My mother passed away in 2003. During the ongoing special intensive revision (SIR) in West Bengal, we discovered that her name has not yet been struck off the 2002 voter list. My brother, who moved to Bangalore a few years later, and subsequently cast his ballot in Karnataka, is still listed as a voter in the 2002 list. Amid a tsunami of allegations and counter-allegations over voter lists, I thought I’d start with a personal anecdote that shows why a revision of the electoral rolls is an urgent necessity.

Name deletions based on legal criteria such as death, migration, or duplication is the very bedrock of electoral democracy. Failure to do so is a dereliction of duty on the part of the Election Commission of India. It is therefore mystifying why the Congress party accuses the constitutional body of hatching a “sinister design to destroy democracy and Opposition parties” for doing the very job that the ECI is mandated to perform. Surely, it can’t be the Congress party’s argument that removal of non-existent voters is a blow to its electoral fortunes.

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One of the key indicators of a robust democratic political system is the sanctity of the electoral process. Demographic shifts due to migration, deaths, and urbanisation often distort existing electoral rolls. It interferes with the integrity of the electoral process, leads to potential voter disenfranchisement and casts doubt on electoral legitimacy. The SIR exercise seeks to systematically update voter lists by verifying existing data, inviting public objections and claims, thereby correcting the databases to better reflect the real eligible electorate. It is essential for free, fair, and transparent elections.

So, when the Congress party’s top leadership decides in an AICC meeting — that convened on Tuesday — that the ECI is responsible for the party’s debacle in Bihar Assembly polls and vows to hold a public rally against the constitutional body in Delhi in the first week of December ( https://www.thehindu.com/news/national/eci-working-on-sinister-design-to-destroy-democracy-opposition-parties-through-sir-congress/article70294736.ece), then it speaks of the grand old party’s cynicism, internalisation of defeatism and hopelessness. Politics allows umpteen comebacks, but not for those who abandon hope and confidence.

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When the Congress claims that the BJP is “weaponising SIR” and accuses the ECI of “complicity”, then it appears that the only Opposition party with a pan-India presence has given up any pretence of a fight. How on earth can a voter list revision load the advantage in favour of any one political outfit in a democracy?

For instance, in one among many social media posts since the Bihar election results, the Congress claimed — without clarifying its methodology — that a “wholesale purge” was carried out “in the name of SIR to remove poor and vulnerable voters who were suffering under the NDA”, and states that “128 seats out of the 202 won by the NDA came purely from SIR-based voter deletions.”  https://x.com/INCKerala/status/1989545091669569880?s=20

While it is strange that not a single eligible voter whose name was struck off the list lodged a formal complaint or filed an election petition under the Representation of the People Act, 1951, there’s a larger puzzle still. Even if we accept for the sake of argument that the ECI ‘conspired to delete’ the names of “poor and vulnerable voters”, how did the Congress conclude that it has a monopoly on the votes of the poor and the destitute?

In a paper published in 2021, ‘Poverty, Pandemic and Elections: Analysis of Bihar Assembly Elections 2020’, Professors Mudit Kapoor and Shamika Ravi focus on the 2020 Bihar election results. Combining elections data with wealth data to study the effect of poverty on election outcomes, the researchers find that “poverty was the key driving factor, over and above female voters as determinants. The results show that the poor were more likely to support the NDA”. The study also finds a striking feature in Muslim population’s voting preferences that go against popular narrative. “The results strongly show that the NDA was more likely to win in constituencies with a higher proportion of Muslim population…”  https://arxiv.org/pdf/2012.06192

The findings of this paper throw into doubt the very premise of Congress’s claims. It also shows the party’s striking inability to reflect on dismal performances and a deep reluctance to launch an honest investigation into the reasons behind its series of losses.

Since 2009, when Rahul Gandhi started taking active interest in politics, the Congress Party has lost 71 out of 83 assembly elections across India. There were Congress-ruled governments in 11 states in 2014. Right now, that number has shrunk to three, including tiny Himachal Pradesh.

Since 2024, when Rahul Gandhi took over as the Leader of the Opposition in the Lok Sabha, the Congress party has lost five out of six assembly elections — getting beaten in Assam, Haryana, Maharashtra, Delhi and Bihar.

After each defeat, Congress has sunk deeper and deeper into conspiracy theories and denialism. It finds fault with either EVMs (but not when it turns out to be the winner) or revision of voter rolls. It now has a problem with the ‘first-past-the-post system’, with many within the party’s ecosystem wondering how the same vote share in 2020 gets a party more seats in 2025!

It finds conspiracy in migrants returning home, in pre-poll alliance sweeping to victory. At every step of the way, the Congress gives the impression of a political outfit that has lost the stomach for a fight and is outsourcing the reasons behind its defeat because it is unable or unwilling to admit the real issue — a leadership that has lost the pulse of the nation.

Contrast the Congress’s reaction with that of the BJP after defeats. Contrary to the popular narrative, the BJP is not an ‘election winning machine’. It is better at learning from mistakes.

The saffron outfit suffered a reverse in Karnataka but did not blame the EVM for its defeat. The below par result in 2024 Lok Sabha polls saw the party’s top leadership accepting the setback. It went back to the drawing board, launched deep introspection and eventually authored a stunning comeback. What the BJP did not do is blame the voters for failing to achieve its target of a simple majority. The BJP was wiped out in 2015 when Arvind Kejriwal’s AAP bagged 67 of the 70 seats. The BJP picked up the pieces, fought hard on issues and eventually returned to power in Delhi after 27 years. The saffron outfit has been serially unsuccessful in dislodging Mamata Banerjee in West Bengal, but not for want of trying.

Along with ideological clarity, organisational strength, grassroot connect and dynamic leadership, what matters in the rough and tumble of electoral politics is the top leadership’s appetite for success. The BJP has an insatiable hunger for success, and a relentless bloody-mindedness to achieve its objectives. During his victory speech after Bihar elections, the prime minister set the target for West Bengal that goes to polls next year. Setting an early objective energises the cadre and keeps them focused on the job at hand.

On the other hand, the Congress party, after its poor show in Bihar where it won just six seats with a dismal 8.71 per cent vote share (down from 9.6 per cent in 2020 when it won 19 seats) has been busy jockeying for and shortlisting candidature for Rajya Sabha seats. As Rasheed Kidwai writes in NDTV, “Instead of introspection, accountability and disciplinary action in the wake of the Bihar verdict, the Congress leadership is busy in a certain ‘reward’ exercise.”

The Gandhi scion seems particularly disinterested in listening to the rare few voices of caution and reason within the party. He ignored appeals from within the party’s Bihar unit that “tried to impress upon the high command” that the “decision to make ‘vote chori’ the centrepiece of the campaign needed a rethink, as the slogan was not resonating on the ground,” writes Sourav Roy Barman in The Print.

The Gandhi dynast similarly has no patience to listen to Mumtaz Patel, the daughter of the late Ahmed Patel — the former backroom strategist and crisis manager known for his political acumen and organisational skills. Mumtaz took to X (formerly Twitter) to write, “No excuses, No blame game, No introspection, it’s time to look within and accept reality. Till when will countless loyal ground workers who have stayed with the party through thick and thin …wait to see success … instead it’s failure after failure due to power concentrated in the hands of few who are totally disconnected with ground reality and are responsible for the misery and rout of the grand old party time and again.  And mark my words these same people will be rewarded again and again because they have made themselves indispensable with their control and power!!”  https://x.com/mumtazpatels/status/1989277485171962333?s=20

The Indian public is not obligated to bring the Congress to power and hand over the reins to Rahul Gandhi. There are no takers for negative politics of relentless allegations. People want to know from political leaders how they can improve their lives, facilitate achievement of their dreams and aspirations. In many respects, Bihar is inching towards becoming a ‘normal’ state, clawing its way out from the back of beyond.

Leaving behind caste arithmetic and community calculations, the Bihar elections delivered a result of ambition and aspiration — of a people long denied opportunities, expressing their desire to be a part of the India story. The Congress must listen. Voters are saying they are keen to know which political party can offer an even better vision of progress for themselves and for India. They are not ready to be a willing stakeholder in a leader’s boutique activism or bottomless cynicism.

(Views expressed in the above piece are personal and solely those of the author. They do not necessarily reflect Firstpost’s views.)