Ashwani Kumar Chrungoo
ashwanikc2012@gmail.com
The Election Commission of India announced the dates for elections in five states on 15 March 2026. Accordingly, the elections will be held in the month of April and the results of all the five states will be declared on 4 May, 2026. Simultaneously, a number of opinion polls have also emerged about the latest political situation in regard to the electoral scenario in these states. What is noteworthy in these opinion polls is the sliding graph of the Congress party. In three states, the party has practically become a peripheral party from its position of the mainstream party only some decades ago. This situation coupled with the results of the Rajya Sabha biennial elections on 16 March speaks a lot about the status of the Congress on ground.
In three states like West Bengal, Tamil Nadu and Puducherry, the Congress stands reduced to a party on the sidelines. In Tamil Nadu it is dependent on DMK while in Kerala it has to go with the alliance called UDF. In Assam though it is the primary opposition party but the opinion polls bring it further down the radar this time. The actual results will be known only on 4 May 2026 but one can gauge the emerging situation particularly in context of the Congress party which was a premier political party in all these states some decades back which are going to the polls in the month of April this year. An analysis is required to know the reasons for such a scenario about the Congress party particularly when the downward graph of the party is not sudden but gradual.
Congress as on date has completed 140 years of its formation. It was the foremost & top-ranking political party of India when India achieved freedom from the Britishers in India. A perception was created after 1947 that the Congress was the only organisation that fought for the freedom of the country and the rest were just an appendage to the mainstream struggle. This perception was also constructed by the Congress (INC) and its echo-system to work as a covering fire to the division of the country into two dominions and the role of the Congress in the division of the country. For a long time, Congress was successful in carrying this perception to the people at large particularly during the Nehru-Indira era.
Congress used its power and influence and guided the Ministry of Education and I&B to take this perception to the common people at large and specifically to the younger generations undergoing studies in schools and colleges. Leftist-progressive elements along with the pseudo-secular echo-system helped the Congress regime to percolate this false perception down the line. A wrong narrative about the ancient past and the medieval history was created and spread throughout for a long time. The nationalist and civilizational aspects were deliberately and consciously put aside and relegated to negligible canvasses of history.
The INC, taking advantage of its role in the freedom struggle and the consequent transfer of power from the Britishers to it, made sure that it remained in power at the centre and in the states permanently. It was successful in its endeavor up to 1967 when for the first time the then opposition gathered mass and assumed power in a number of states by winning the state elections. It was for the first time in 1977, consequent upon the declaration of elections during the Emergency period, that the Congress was defeated convincingly and the opposition assumed power at the Centre under the banner of Janta Party.
Congress under Indira Gandhi bounced back in 1980 consequent upon the division in Janta Party and thus it won the midterm elections. From 1980 to 1989, Congress remained in power but started losing most of its control on its traditional vote bank due to various reasons. Rajiv Gandhi who took over from his mother, Indira Gandhi, after her brutal murder by her own security guards in 1984, became the Prime Minister of India immediately after her death. From 1981 to 1984 India passed through a very tumultuous period due to terrorism in Punjab and its impact on the rest of India. Cross-border terrorism ruined Punjab and it became a big centre of anti-national and terrorist activities. It all happened due to the wrong policies of the Congress government at the centre.
Later on when the things went out of hands, the Central government under the Congress was forced to go for Operation Bluestar on the Darbar Sahib, Amritsar-Punjab. Thereafter two police actions were also taken inside the Golden temple by the end of 1980s. During the 1980s, Ramjanambhumi movement spread throughout the length and breadth of the country and it surely impacted the minds of a large segment of the population in the country. The Bofors scam created hell for the Congress both politically and electorally. It lost the elections held in November 1989 after having won them in 1984 with a sweeping majority of 415 seats in the Lok Sabha consequent upon the murder of Indira Gandhi.
The Congress could never recover from the situation of 1989 though it formed the government again at the centre in 1991, 2004 and 2009 as a leading partner of a coalition of several political parties. Terrorism in Kashmir and the ethnic cleansing of the Hindu minorities from Kashmir valley also played their part in making people aware about the wrong policies of the Congress government. In 1991, it formed a minority-coalition government at the centre for the first time after 1947 under the leadership of veteran Narsimha Rao. Its vote share also came down significantly at a national level and it lost elections in all big states in a period of ten years during the 1980s and 1990s. From a whooping 40-45%+ vote share for the Congress party throughout, it came down below 30%. Janta Dal, BJP and the Left parties started gaining at the expense of Congress party.
BJP being the cadre based party with a solid ideological background consolidated its gains after 1989 and emerged as a formidable opposition party of the nation in 1991. It further strengthened its vote share and took it beyond 20% at the national level. Then Congress lost its major bastions like UP, Bihar, MP, Andhra Pradesh, West Bengal and TN wherefrom 50% of the Lok Sabha seats were/are elected. With this development, its vote share got further reduced eventually and it started losing grip on its most traditional and trusted vote banks in the Hindu community. However, it did everything to save its minority vote bank at the cost of losing state elections one by one.
The parallel political activity on behalf of the other political parties gave its biggest benefit to the BJP in the 1990s and it was able to form the coalition governments three times from 1996 to 2004. While BJP increased its vote share to around 25% at the national level, it also came very close to the percentage vote share of the Congress party. The year 2009 brought Congress back to the Centre stage for the second successive term but an overwhelming saga of its involvement in the scams came to the light to its detriment. The coalition government of Manmohan Singh was considered as the most corrupt government of the modern times for which the Congress party had to pay from its nose electorally.
The year 2014 saw a massive wave against the Congress government and it lost the general elections. Narendra Modi as the national leader of the BJP swept the elections and created history by forming the BJP government at the centre on its own. However, the BJP took all its allies along with and called its government as the NDA-BJP government. While the Congress came down to a record low with 44 seats in the Lok Sabha, the Leftists also lost their ground at the national level and got alarmingly reduced at the hustings. This situation got further strengthened in 2019 general elections in which the Congress vote share fell below 20% and the BJP vote share went beyond 35% at the national level. This was considered a paradigm shift in the minds of the electorate of the country.
Though Congress gained somewhat in 2024 alongwith the other opposition parties, however, it couldn’t create any hurdles to the BJP-NDA to form their government at the Centre for the third consecutive time. In addition to this, the Congress lost power in almost all the states of India barring three states ie Karnataka, HP and Telangana. Its policies in the fields of economy, defence, foreign relations, education, foreign affairs and home were considered disastrous for the nation in the long run and the voters of the country punished it for its policies and programmes on the ground. The BJP successfully accused it of policy paralysis.
Besides this, the Congress party was stung by the leadership crisis and the organisational issues as well over the last one and a half decades. It continuously haunted/haunts the party directly and indirectly. It has also brought the party’s prestige down in the eyes of the public at large. The irresponsible attitude of its leader Rahul Gandhi both inside and outside the parliament has severely damaged the party both from the inside as well as the outside. The Congress party lost 95 elections since 2014 and it might touch a century after the results of the 5 state elections due in April this year.
There is a loss of credibility that acutely plagues the Congress as on date. Its leadership is not seen as a serious one. It keeps itself busy in accusing institutions of constitutional importance for one reason or the other and also the constitutional authorities without any sort of remorse or accountability. Rahul Gandhi, whom people call the leader of propaganda (LoP), and his coterie have sought an apology a number of times before the courts of law for their irresponsible public comments and statements about people and institutions. It seems unlikely that they would mend their ways so soon. Thus Congress’s suffering and fading credibility in the eyes of the common people will remain unabated.
(The author is a senior BJP and KP leader)
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