Last week when Congress’ leader Rahul Gandhi concluded his pan-India march in Mumbai, the limelight shifted, for the first time since the onset of run-up to 2024 polls, towards the grand old party of India. The Congress, the incumbent BJP’s principal challenger and the main opposition party, political pundits read, will certainly improve its poll performance, however, its gains will be too marginal to dislodge the Prime Minister Narendra Modi-led Bharatiya Janata Party from power.
The Friday Times has collected input from correspondents and staffers of various newspapers, TV news channels, poll consultancies, political party functionaries and independent political observers to size up the support and possible performance of the Congress in almost all the states where the party is contesting elections.
The Congress is contesting (tentatively) 250 seats in 22 states and 6 Union Territories. Besides, the Congress is in a tie-up with several regional parties in the Indian National Developmental Inclusive Alliance (dubbed INDIA through its backronym). It’s an alliance of almost 25-28 parties, loosely united or committed, making it so that the Congress’ chances hang in the balance, for better or worse.
Some pre-poll surveys conducted in the first three weeks of March have also projected almost similar post-poll propositions.
Short of Target
In 2014 and in 2019, the Congress won 44 and 52 seats respectively – its worst performance in its 138-year history. It even failed to secure the numbers to claim the Leader of the Opposition position in the Lok Sabha, the Lower House of Indian Parliament, which is elected every five years.
The Congress was in a direct fight with BJP on around 200 seats in these two elections. BJP trounced it on 174 seats in 2014 and on 185 seats in 2019. These were in Chhattisgarh, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, Maharashtra, Karnataka, Gujarat, Haryana, Assam etc.
Battleground UP: SP-Congress Alliance Makes 2024 Contest In India’s Hearts And Minds Province One To WatchThus, according to a senior Congress member, the party has focused to secure at least 60-70 seats out of these 200. “Only then it will be counted as a Congress revival and fightback, and the party will be able to reach the mark of 100 seats,” he said. He, however, was not sure that in case of his party being ditched by its own leaders and alliance partners at the very outset of the election, how can the party hope to put up a fight and finish near the target line?
Senior political analyst Amitabh Tiwari, in his pre-poll calculations for India........© The Friday Times