Nine months after the Congress‘ miserable show in the Delhi election – to finish 0,0,0 in three straight elections in the national capital – the ‘Grand Old Party’ slumped to defeat in Bihar.
‘Defeat’, though, is putting it mildly. The truth is the Congress was demolished.
In cricket terms, the party is set to be all out for one chasing 19, the number of seats it won in the last election, after contesting 70. In harsher speak, the party turned in its worst ever Bihar election result.
The Congress lost seats to the BJP, the Janata Dal, and Chirag Paswan’s Lok Janshakti Party.
The only seat it has won so far is Kishanganj, courtesy ex-AIMIM leader Qamrul Hoda, although it is leading in five others – Valmiki Nagar, Chanpatia, Forbesganj, Araria, and Manihar.
It has also lost seats, critics will say, to its hubris and disconnect with voters, a sentiment many saw in Rahul Gandhi’s prolonged absence from campaigning and underlined by the thumping across the 110 seats his Royal Enfield and he wound their way through in August for the ‘Voter Adhikar Yatra‘.
That yatra was supposed to kickstart the Congress’ Bihar plan, to prime its voters to realise the ‘vote chori‘ being perpetuated by the Bharatiya Janata Party in collusion with the Election Commission, to galvanise them into dumping the JDU and the ‘forever’ Chief Minister, Nitish Kumar.
But then the yatra finished. Gandhi disappeared. And voters, disillusioned not only by his absence but the apparent lack of a plan, any plan to develop Bihar and find jobs its nearly 50 lakh unemployed men and women, turned to the BJP, which said it had a plan – for jobs and infrastructure growth.
RECAP | Jobs, Women, Infra, Education: Key Points From NDA’s Bihar Manifesto
And they had boots on the ground, starting with an apparently indefatigable Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who headlined 14 rallies and made seven visits to Bihar. Amit Shah was present (and worked behind the scenes too, sources told NDTV) and Yogi Adityanath delivered over a dozen speeches.
READ | Amit Shah Was Right. BJP-Led Alliance Sweeps Bihar With 160+ Seats
To be fair to Gandhi, he was on the ground too. The yatra travelled over 1,300 km to cover 23 districts in 16 days. It was a good start; Rahul Gandhi was visible and meeting voters, till he was not.
And once the BJP rolled out its big guns, when the Mahagathbandhan needed the optic of Tejashwi Yadav and Rahul Gandhi on stage together, the Congress was slow to respond. It wasn’t till October 29, a week before the first phase of polling, that the two leaders occupied the same space.
The red flags came out then; one candidate, who asked he not be named, told NDTV, “People ask us, ‘where is your top leader?’ What do we say? Without the Gandhi face, how do we convince voters?”
Rahul Gandhi has led the Congress to 95 electoral defeats, the BJP crowed (File).
A party worker from Bhagalpur echoed the frustration. “We are putting up posters, holding roadshows… but without Rahul Gandhi it feels incomplete…”
Allies Rashtriya Janata Dal weren’t amused either. Multiple sources in the party grumbled to NDTV about an ally that fights ‘half-heartedly’, possibly with bitter memories of the 2020 election still fresh.
Back then Tejashwi Yadav lit a fire under voters and dragged the RJD to victory 75 seats.
The JDU was on the backfoot, Nitish Kumar was finally vulnerable, and all the opposition needed was a semi-strong push by its allies to take him down. The Left responded with 16 seats.
The Congress needed to deliver 31 but it could not.
Tejashwi Yadav was the opposition alliance’s chief ministerial candidate (File).
Since then, Yadav has tried. He has been present in the Assembly, taking on Nitish Kumar and the BJP and he has reached out to first-time voters, who responded positively, perhaps the only bloc to actually do that after even the Yadav community opted for the BJP-led alliance.
But sans a miracle the RJD was never going to win if it had to drag the Congress along, particularly if Rahul Gandhi was going to be MIA. The ask – 122 seats – was just too much.
In fact, Gandhi is still MIA; he hasn’t tweeted so far today and it is 5.30 pm.
The only tweet on his X account today is a throwback mention of Jawaharlal Nehru.
READ | “Total Failure Of Organisation”: Congress Leader On Bihar Result
In the build-up to this election, the Congress defended its strategy, part of which was supposedly Gandhi’s shift from crowd politics to issue-based politics, such as the ‘vote chori‘ campaign.
And so now the party must ask itself – has the shift worked? Was it ever going to in a state where jobs and healthcare are at a premium and lakhs live hand-to-mouth?
The Bihar election adds to a long list of defeats for Gandhi’s Congress, a list the BJP’s Amit Malviya gleefully tweeted, declaring, “Rahul Gandhi! Another election, another defeat!”
The count, the BJP claims, is now 95.
READ | “Another Election, Another Defeat”: BJP Mocks Rahul Gandhi After Bihar
If accurate, then the Congress and Gandhi will want to avoid that ‘century’.
Critics will also point out the Congress has still not solved the existential crisis that sparked five years ago, after a horrible performance in the 2020 federal election. Then a group of dissenters, the ‘G-23’, wrote to Sonia Gandhi demanding changed leadership and accountability.
Yes, the Congress has won elections since; victory in Karnataka and Telangana in 2023 will go some way towards answering those critics, but it is not enough. It Is not enough to maintain the Congress’ position as the senior-most opposition party in the country.
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