Withered hand

Assembly poll results show that the Congress is facing an existential crisis and is fast losing national relevance, but the party claims that only it has the national perspective required to hold the country together

- SONI MISHRA

The latest round of assembly polls have brought the Congress no reason to cheer. The assessment that the party is in an uncontrolled downward spiral, staring at an existential crisis and fast losing national relevance, has gained further strength.

As West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee single-handedly fought and retained the state, several Congress leaders congratulated her, apparently taking solace in the BJP failing in its mighty gambit. The flip side of the poll outcome in West Bengal, however, was that the Congress failed to win even a single seat, and its vote share plummeted to three per cent.

The Congress failed to wrest back Assam from the BJP and lost Puducherry. The biggest setback for it was in Kerala, where the circumstances favoured the Congress—given the revolving door nature of elections in the state, and where it had made a near clean sweep in the Lok Sabha polls in 2019—and yet it failed. The only bright spot was Tamil Nadu, where the party won 18 of the 25 seats it contested, but it benefited from the pro-DMK sentiment in the state.

Of the 14 assembly polls that have taken place since the 2019 Lok Sabha elections, the Congress has managed to form governments in only three states —Maharashtra, Jharkhand and Tamil Nadu. But it is a junior partner in these three states. On its own, it is in power only in Rajasthan, Punjab and Chhattisgarh.