The latest round of Assembly elections manifests the fading footprints of the Congress in the Northeast but the leaders are desperately projecting a silver lining, saying the results do not matter, as the present one was just an exercise for the future.
At the same time, it has something to cheer from the Assembly bypolls, as it defeated Trinamool Congress in West Bengal as well as the BJP in a seat in Maharashtra it never won in 33 years besides registering a thumping victory in Tamil Nadu.
In the Northeast, which witnessed Assembly polls in three states, the Congress found relief in winning three seats in Tripura, riding on an alliance with the CPI(M)-led Left Front, and five in Meghalaya, where all its 21 sitting MLAs had migrated to BJP, Trinamool and NPP. However, it could not open its account in Nagaland.
Congress is seeking to project its performance in the Northeast as something that is done with an eye on the future though the initial post-mortem did not point towards realisation of what actually went wrong. However, the results actually project a leadership vacuum in Congress, which the BJP is capitalising on.
While the BJP went on a blitzkrieg, Congress’s national leaders were virtually absent. Neither Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge nor top leader Rahul Gandhi chose to campaign in Tripura, a state, according to party General Secretary Jairam Ramesh on Thursday, where the party expected to win a majority with ally CPI(M).
Rahul held one rally in Meghalaya while Kharge travelled to Nagaland once. In Tripura, the national leaders did not even bother to hold a joint rally with the CPI(M). It appeared the central leaders’ preoccupation with the Plenary Session too added to the woes.
Ramesh defended this saying the elections were state-based and it was not right to say that national leaders could swing the elections one way or the other. It all depends on how the candidate is, campaign is done and how strong the organisation is and not national leaders, he added.
A senior leader added, it is wrong to say that everything was left to state functionaries, as leaders like Adhir Ranjan Choudhary spent at least a couple of days in Tripura and other states.
In Meghalaya, the Congress appeared to do it in a bold way by fielding candidates in all 60 seats after all its MLAs switched sides. “These candidates are for the future. We are building blocks in Meghalaya. Same thing is happening in Nagaland,” Ramesh said.
For the party, leaders said, what is needed is organisational rejig. In Meghalaya, Mukul Sangma leaving the party impacted the party in a big way though Congress said that Trinamool Congress too did not do well as projected.
Amid the dismal performance in the Northeast, there are silver linings in the bypoll results.
In West Bengal, the Congress won the Sagardighi seat after 51 years by 22,986 votes. This seat was won by Trinamool Congress in 2021 by a margin of 50,206. The party also won Kasba Peth seat in Maharashtra after a gap of 33 years from the BJP while Tamil Nadu’s Erode (East) was another victory for the party.
All these victories could also be attributed to a united Opposition’s efforts. However, Congress could not win Jharkhand’s Ramgarh.