The Congress, by handing the BJP a walkover in Haryana with a third term in power and the status of representing the vulnerable Hindus in Jammu as well as in Kashmir, has given the Narendra Modi-led party the morale booster it needed after the shock of the 2024 Lok Sabha election. In doing so, the Congress has been irresponsible and failed in fulfilling its role as the leader and biggest stakeholder of the anti-BJP Opposition and its Indian National Developmental Inclusive Alliance.
As the challenger, the Congress has not failed to disappoint, succeeding in snatching defeat from victory in Haryana where it was in a straight fight against the BJP, and faring badly in Jammu, also against the BJP. In contrast, in Jammu and Kashmir, the National Conference, winning 42 seats in both parts of the Union territory, securing it the cachet of the largest single party, means it is mandated to represent the people as a whole. It undermines to an extent the BJP’s claims to be the guardian angel of Jammu, though not its championship of the Hindu minority in its relentless drive to
advocate divisive majoritarian politics.
The Congress’ abysmal performance confirms that there are fatal flaws in its organisation and leadership that, going forward, could have disastrous consequences in Maharashtra and in Jharkhand, where Assembly elections will be held soon. The seat-sharing discussions that seemed to have reached the finalisation stage in Maharashtra between the Congress, the Sharad Pawar-led Nationalist Congress and the Uddhav Thackeray-led Shiv Sena will have to be renegotiated. The Congress’ failure to convert its 40 per cent
vote share into a commensurable number of seats in Haryana raises questions about its leadership, organisation and management of elections, more so because the BJP’s vote share of 40 per cent was converted into its biggest electoral victory in the state in its third term.
Political pundits are duty bound to pontificate on the need for the Congress to introspect, however pointless the exercise may be. The issue is not about what others make of the Congress’ failure to win, even when victory was achievable, as it was in Haryana. It is about the Congress as an organisation and as the instrument of its success or its failures. The contrast with the BJP is stark.
It bears repeating that in preparing for the election in Haryana, the BJP knew it had problems a year ago. It took bold and risky steps to break the stranglehold of entrenched leaders by replacing Manohar Lal Khattar as chief minister and bringing in the relatively less experienced Nayab Singh Saini, who was an unknown quantity. It also knew that the Haryana party was ridden with factions that depleted its capacity to fight. The Congress thought it was being clever by putting all its eggs in one basket, that is, Bhupinder Singh Hooda, the battle-hardened veteran, by believing his assurances that he could do things single-handed. Like the BJP, the Congress knew there was debilitating internal fights in the Haryana unit, focused on Mr Hooda’s leadership and Jat-centric politics. In doing so, the Congress alienated its star Dalit leader Kumari Selja, which was a blunder of the biggest magnitude as the results show.
The BJP also managed rebellions within the party by taking control over ticket distribution and then it ensured that the anti-incumbency votes were neutralised by putting up rebels and dissidents as Independent candidates. In contrast, the Congress could not even risk rubbing Mr Hooda up the wrong way by insisting on collective leadership in the campaign by pooling the strength of its multiple leaders.
Not even the best political strategists or for that matter, the best of charismatic leaders, can save the Congress from its own stupidity, if it does not want to learn from its own history of bad decisions. By losing out in Haryana and merely registering its presence in Jammu and Kashmir, the Congress has done significant damage to the larger cause of providing leadership and bolstering the strength of the anti-BJP Opposition and its platform, the INDIA bloc.
After the 2024 Lok Sabha elections, the Congress’ failure to add to the tally of the INDIA bloc by winning in Haryana and doing well in Jammu and Kashmir equals weakening the collective capacity of the bloc to make the BJP bleed in Maharashtra, Jharkhand, Delhi and Bihar, where elections are due. The Congress by its actions has proved that it is neither a strong challenger to the BJP on its own nor a dependable partner in an alliance with regional parties at the state level.
At stake are issues critical to the idea of India’s democracy, its secularism and the dislocation of its trajectory of pro-poor policies and overall development. For starters, a weaker Congress after its shocking defeat in Haryana means that it cannot push as hard as it should to pin the Narendra Modi government down on making good on the promise to restore statehood to Jammu and Kashmir. The Haryana loss has also compromised Rahul Gandhi’s position as the Leader of the Opposition in the Lok Sabha.
It also bodes ill for the fight that is necessary to stop the Narendra Modi government from moving ahead with the One Nation-One Election agenda. The BJP’s win, on the contrary, enables it to push forward with its agenda of unrolling a Uniform Civil Code, as its governments in Uttarakhand and Assam have promised to do at the earliest. It emboldens the BJP to flout the Supreme Court’s orders banning bulldozer politics as a form of punishment on vulnerable communities, targeting the Muslim minority. It allows the Modi government to go ahead with the communally divisive National Register of Citizens by making it an issue in the Jharkhand election by raking up fears among tribals of being swamped by illegal Muslim Rohingya immigrants. It enables the Centre to backtrack on its promises to the farmer community on Minimum Support Prices that was a fundamental demand of the farmers’ protest. It allows the Modi government to divert attention through the newly unveiled schemes for improving the farm and animal husbandry sectors. The list is just the starters in a much larger menu of changes that the BJP would like to implement to advance its hegemonist agenda.
A more confident Narendra Modi and an aggressive BJP will be a much tougher proposition for the INDIA bloc, of which the Congress is the biggest stakeholder. The party has to decide if it has the appetite and the stamina to carry on a no- holds-barred fight up to the 2029 Lok Sabha elections.