CONGRESS IS IN NO POSITION TO REPLICATE 2004 RESULTS

In 2004, Congress won 145 seats and formed government with the help of opposition parties.

- AJIT MAINDOLA

The general elections of 2024 have become the most interesting so far. While the BJP is talking about crossing the 400 mark, the opposition, especially the Congress, is unable to make any claims openly about themselves. While they do refer to the situation in 2004, they are refraining from claiming even 145 seats. Based on the elections so far, it doesn’t seem like such a scenario is going to happen. The circumstances then and now have completely changed. The BJP is contesting the elections under the leadership of the powerful figure of Narendra Modi, while the opposition lacks a prominent face. Despite this, former Congress president Rahul Gandhi claims that if the BJP fails to cross 180 seats this time, then with the support of Congress ally Arvind Kejriwal, they can take it up to 220 seats.

Samajwadi Party leader Akhilesh Yadav, speaking about Uttar Pradesh, says that the I.N.D.I. Alliance will win 79 seats in the state. Trinamool Congress leader Mamata Banerjee makes a different announcement that her party, will support the I.N.D.I. government from outside. All opposition parties have their own estimates. There is no unity among them. How accurate or incorrect the opposition’s estimate is will be known on the results day, 4th June.

During 2004 and 2009, when the UPA government was formed under the leadership of the Congress, they managed to secure a significant number of seats in the Hindi belt and the South. If we compare the figures from that time to 2014 and 2019, it seems unlikely for the Congress to repeat that performance this time. The reason for this is that Congress has made several mistakes. One, they couldn’t decide who would be the face against Prime Minister