(Anita Saluja)
Three successive defeats in the General Elections, has left the Congress completely battered. A dominant political force across the country for many decades since the dawn of Indian Independence, the Congress has now been pushed to the third position, not only in States like Uttar Pradesh, West Bengal and Delhi, but even in States once considered its bastions, like Odisha and Maharashtra. Possibly, a party can recover and recapture power, if it is at the Number 2 position. But in State after State, it finds itself being pushed to the third position. That makes the task of the Congress that much more difficult to remain in the contest for power.
Decline in the political fortunes of the Congress happened steadily, ever since. The party did come back to power in 1980, following the fall of the Janata Party Government in 1979 and again won a staggering 400 Plus seats in the Lok Sabha, in the wake of the tragic assassination of Indira Gandhi on October 31, 1984, riding a sympathy wave. The Congress never won a simple majority on its own steam since 1984.
In 1989, it failed to retain power at the Centre. Despite the assassination of Rajiv Gandhi on May 21, 1991, the Congress failed to secure a simple majority in the General Election in 1991, forming Government. In 2004, the Congress came to power at the head of a Coalition Government and retained in power in 2009 in the Coalition arrangement. Three defeats in a row, in 2014, 2019 and 2024 has raised a question mark on the future of the Congress. The question is whether at all the Congress can ever recover from the shock and bounce back as the principal challenger to the ruling BJP.
Groping for a strategy to regain its footprint on the political landscape, the Congress leadership appears to be serious about changing the situation. The party is holding a series of closed-door meetings, aimed at weeding out deadwood and injecting new blood.
After years, for the first time, Leader of Opposition Rahul Gandhi is reaching out to senior leaders for a one-on-one meeting. A senior leader expressed surprise after one such meeting, saying this was a rare departure from the past practice, when Rahul Gandhi evinced little interest on any presentation made to him. Now, he has become not only interactive but asks opinion on stand to be taken on certain issues and even agrees on a certain course of action suggested to him.
Another such meeting was with Shashi Tharoor, who had been trying for an appointment with Rahul Gandhi for close to three years. Interestingly, in his hour-long meeting with Rahul Gandhi, Shashi Tharoor did manage to put across clearly his viewpoint. It is all about putting to full use the potential in a leader, by giving him an active role. An intellectual and a brilliant orator, Shashi Tharoor is not being used to advantage in parliamentary debates. That is the least that the party could do.
For the first time, in recent years, it is widely being accepted within the party that there is insistent and imperative need to drastically overhaul the party organization, in order to improve its overall performance in elections. At the Extended Congress Working Committee (CWC) meeting in Belagavi in December last, 2025 was designated as the year of organizational revamp.
Belatedly, the exercise of organizational revamp was initiated only recently. Several known faces, like Rajiv Shukla, considered close to the Congress First Family, besides seasoned leaders like Mohan Prakash and Ajoy Kumar, besides former Gujarat Chief Minister Madhav Sinh Solank’s son Bharat Solanki, were shown the door.
At the same time, no-nonsense leaders like Meenakshi Natarajan and Krishna Alavuru have been given an opportunity as new AICC InCharge’s of Telangana and Bihar, respectively. While Meenakashi Natarajan is expected to bring about greater cohesion and consolidate the Congress in Telangana, Krishna Alavuru is tasked with the responsibility to rebuild the party in Bihar, in order to improve its position in the State and to increase its strike rate in the upcoming State Assembly elections.
An organizational person like K Raju has been, for the first time, given independent charge of Jharkhand. Earlier, he headed the AICC Dalit Department and started a serious Dalit outreach programme. Presently, he is credited with playing up the Trump Card of the BJP Hidden Agenda to junk and replace the Constitution, which helped the party to win large chunks of Dalit votes in the Lok Sabha elections in 2024. Besides, the Congress leadership has held a series of brainstorming sessions, separately with leaders of each of the election-going States of Assam and Kerala, where Assembly elections are slated for in 2026.
The challenge for the party is not only to wrest power in these two States, where it has sizeable presence, but also improve its performance in Bihar, which goes to polls later this year.
AICC In charge of Bihar Krishna Allavaru was tried out in Punjab and Gujarat elections in 2017, where the party performance was beyond expectations. While in Punjab, the Congress came to power, in Gujarat, the Congress came into striking distance to power, besides restricting BJP to 99 seats in 182-member House. Later, he was In charge of Youth Congress, before now being given full, independent charge of Bihar.
All AICC In charges of Bihar in the past used to pay obeisance in the Durbar of RJD Supremo Lalu Prasad Yadav. These included the likes of Bhakta Charan Das, Mohan Prakash and Shakti Sinh Gohil.
Breaking free from such a practice, Krishna Allavaru has sent out a strong message that the Congress, from now onwards, will be run by party men and not by RJD Supremo Lalu Yadav. The RJD leader had such a stranglehold that he not only decided how seats the Congress gets, but also had a major say on the party’s candidate’s selection in constituencies allocated to it.
The party has realized that with its low vote share, it cannot win elections, but certainly it ensures defeat of another party. In recent Delhi Assembly elections, BJP polled 45.56 per cent vote, AAP got 43.57 per cent and the Congress got 6.34 per cent vote. Difference between BJP and AAP was just two per cent and the Congress, with 6 per cent vote, could have helped to decisively swing the verdict in favour of the AAP.
The message of the Delhi Assembly elections verdict was that if AAP had tied up with the Congress, a third successive term was assured for AAP Supremo Arvind Kejriwal. Such a message holds equally good for the Bihar Assembly elections later this year. Taking advantage of the situation, the Congress plans to press ahead with its perceived advantage by going it alone in the upcoming round of Assembly elections. The dominant view in the Congress is that the INDIA arrangement is only for Lok Sabha elections. In the State Assembly elections, the Congress wants to improve its own standing at the grassroots level, to increase its bargaining power during seat-sharing talks.
For its plans to succeed, lot depends on how the Congress fares in the upcoming round of Assembly elections. Starting with Bihar Assembly polls later this year, where it needs to put up convincing performance, the Congress has to win States like Assam and Kerala next year. Much of the Congress Revival plans are dependent on how ultimately the Congress manages to improve its performance in these crucial Assembly elections.
(Writer is a Delhi-based Senior Journalist. Views are personal.)
