The Wet Blanket

Trust the Congress to make a virtue out of a humiliating electoral defeat. As results for the Bihar assembly polls began coming in, it was evident that the Congress had lived up to its notorious reputation of being the weakest leak in the RJD-led mahagathbandhan. The party, which had forced Tejashwi Yadav into conceding 70 of the state’s 243 seats in the seat-sharing arrangement with RJD and Left allies, had the worst showing in the coalition. It won just 19 seats despite a three per cent increase in its vote share.

Yet, as the results poured-in, Congress’s media panel head for the Bihar polls Pawan Khera waxed eloquent on how his party had “contested the most difficult 70 seats in the state which had been traditional NDA strongholds” because “someone had to fight”.

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There are tough questions the Congress must now answer, or at least introspect over. Even before the election campaign started, questions were raised on the Congress’s insistence for demanding seats disproportionately higher than its worth. The Congress’s best poll performance in Bihar in recent decades was in 2015 when it had won 27 of the 41 seats it contested. That election victory was touted as the result of a rare and short-lived alliance between the JD (U), RJD and the Congress but the party rejected this reality and demanded 70 seats in the coalition this time round.

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The party’s Bihar in-charge Shaktisinh Gohil blamed the party’s poor show on a “combination of factors like the Congress contesting on several difficult seats, split of votes by Asaduddin Owaisi’s AIMIM, among others”. He, however, declined to answer how none of these factors stopped the RJD or even the cash-strapped Left parties from registering impressive strike rates.

The Congress’s most noticeable rout was in the state’s Muslim-dominated Seemanchal region where it had bagged 10 seats in 2015 but was down to just three this election. The party blames the outcome in the Seemanchal districts of Kishanganj, Araria, Purnia and Katihar to AIMIM candidates who either “won traditional Congress seats or split votes that helped the NDA”. A senior Congress leader from the region, however, tells Outlook that the rout in Seemanchal was expected since “we don’t mean anything to the Muslims anymore and the community has been moving towards the AIMIM because Owaisi raises their issues strongly…our leaders who refused to put up any fight on issues like the Ayodhya verdict and Ram Mandir construction; why should they now blame AIMIM from expanding its base?”

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Within the Bihar Congress, murmurs against the disinterest of the party’s central leadership in the campaign have begun. Says a former MLA who lost his re-election bid, “Rahul Gandhi and Priyanka Gandhi Vadra were our star campaigners… Rahul addressed a handful of rallies and disappeared; Priyanka didn’t even come to Bihar. Central leaders like Randeep Surjewala only made things difficult for local leaders and were more concerned about hogging the limelight at press conferences.”

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The Bihar disaster comes at a time when a section of the party is again pushing for Rahul’s return as party president. However, Rahul’s uninspiring leadership in the Bihar campaign, coupled with the party’s drubbing in the bypolls held in MP, UP and Gujarat could once again trigger voices of discontent, akin to the push for intra-party reform sought by 23 senior leaders in July, could resurface anytime now.

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But, does the Congress even care anymore?