Can Congress com back again?

Congress to bounce back?  Ever since, they were almost smashed in the last parliament election followed by various bouts in the state assembly elections, the possibility becomes somewhat remote at least in the near future.  But you never know, in politics anything can happen. If a fruitful combination of the Congress, along with various  regional parties  and if the said combination can come forward with a forceful political manifestations and policies to augment the reforms, the said  combination may come back.  But in reality, considering the present political equation, can it be possible? 

 

The political history shows that when Congress lost in many elections, particularly in What is the chance of the  states at regional level and after their massive defeats, they were written.  It happened in West Bengal, and the same trend is still continuing there.  But in many other places, Congress was able to manage to show their political guts and recover from terrible debacles.  It was basically because of the wide spread of this organization and they are the second largest party  in the national election scenario.

 

Why Congress suffered debacles?  One of the main reasons is anti-incumbency factor.  After one term, when people do not find significant results for which they aspire, the party in power losses. The present scenario of the BJP’s position in the national scenario will also lead to the same path as a matter of political norms. As of now, the good governance, curb of inflation, deflationary trend in the prices of some essential commodities and not  that bad growth of the manufacturing sectors almost manage to maintain the level of aspirations of the people.  If this cycle is continued then BJP and the NDA government can get another chance to come back to power.  If not, then what Congress used to face the consequence or at present face, the BJP’s condition will be same.  This national government, who won with a thumping victory, can be out by the same people’s verdict.  So, Congress has to wait and watch, find out the right opportunity and allow BJP to make mistakes and be hit by the anti-incumbency factor.

 

Now, this anti-incumbency factor may not be applicable and favor Congress in many states.  The reason is that Congress, by virtue of its ineffective organizational capability, it now occupies third and fourth position in many states.   The anti-incumbency factor mostly brings back the number two party in the power.  And it is sure that Congress will not be able to bounce back from the position of three or four.  If chronologically, you see the past history of this party, it  first happened in the state of Tamilnadu.  They were in, power up to 1967, but miserably lost to DMK.  The waiting period of come back to Congress was never fructified, because M.G. Ramchandran came out from the DMK to form his own party AIADMK, and these two parties, namely DMK and AIADMK occupied the position No. 1 & 2 respectively ultimately sealed the prospect of the Congress for revival.  The similar fate was meted to this party in Bihar and Uttar Pradesh.  The Congress was trounced by Lalu Yadav in Bihar in the year 1990, but was holding the rank of no 2 in the state. Subsequently, for many political misdoing and wrong political steps, this party slipped into the position of no. 3 being overtaken by the BJP as well as Lalu.  Thereafter, their fate was further downgraded to the fourth position after the formation of Samta Party founded by Nitish Kumar, after he detached his association from Lalu Yadav.  Later on, this Samta Party was known as JDU.

 

In Uttar Pradesh, which is the largest state in India, Mulayam Singh dashed down this Congress party in the state assembly election of 1989.  Thereafter, Congress never came back in this state and only to be driven out by the popularity of the BJP and the BSP.  During this period, in some other states, of course, the Congress remained No.1 and No. 2.

 

In the last few years, the Congress was not able to recover  wherever they slipped into the position of 3 or lower.  For example, in West Bengal, the position of this party was behind the CPI (M) and TMC.  In Andhra Pradesh, it was eclipsed and shadowed by TDP and YSR Congress, in Haryana by the BJP and INLD and in Maharashtra by the BJP and Shiv Sena respectively.

 

The present political scenario shows that the once  the very powerful party Congress occupies the power in only three major states, namely Karnataka, Kerala and Assam and some other mini states like Uttarakhand and Manipur. If you delve into the statistics of numbers, these states together constitute 80 out of total 543 seats in parliament.   Considering these facts of the political equation and the prospecting of coalition of various parties, it is not so conducive for Congress to depend on the anti - incumbency factor to come back in power in places where it has already gone down to no. 3 or 4. 

 

If it can bring in a new massage, give a strategic vision and thrust a powerful swing to the development of the country’s political, social and economic reforms for the benefit of the people and ensure an able leadership, then perhaps it can come back.  Some Congressmen want Priyanka Gandhi to take the stewardship to steer past the dark cloud hovering over the party.  But her husband’s malaise and dubious deals may be not a fruitful proposition to project her as a future leader.  Some others in the party is whispering  and mumbling to take the mantle of the reign of the party from Rahul Gandhi and entrust the responsibility of leading the party to a new leader.  But the opportunists and so-called followers of the Gandhi family will not vouch for the same for their own existence  and occupy their own positions even in this dilapidated and fractured organization of the Congress.

 

The only advantage is that this party still occupies no. two position in the national politics.  The regional parties may thrash this party to no. 3 or no. 4 position in the states, but no single regional party can dislodge its position from the number two in the centre.  So, when the anti-incumbency hits the BJP at the appropriate time, the Congress may come back to power taking various regional parties as its allies to form  again a coalition cum hotchpotch  government in Delhi.

 

The Congress might have suffered humiliation at the hands of left front as well as TMC and many other regional parties in various states, but at the centre, they may again come back, if all is well in their organization with respect to restructure , rethinking  and  show guts amalgamated with determination to occupy the power. Otherwise, this party will dodder like a shambling gait.