<p> As the party celebrates winning over 200 Lok Sabha seats alone in the just-concluded elections, its senior leaders see in the mandate the opportunity to march ahead to regain its lost glory in the coming days. <br /><br />Though the Congress officially said that it would not ditch its allies and take them along, several party veterans said it was the time to look beyond coalitions and strengthen itself further so that it could once again be in a position to claim power in the Centre on its own. The party had last secured absolute majority in the 543-member House in 1985.<br /> Its performance graph in the subsequent elections went down and it had to concede more political spaces not only to its rivals but also to the parties it had to ally with. <br /><br />But this time the Congress took a calculated risk by going it alone in Uttar Pradesh after its talks for sharing of seats with Mulayam Singh Yadav’s Samajwadi Party (SP) failed. <br />“The results clearly show that our decision to go alone in UP helped us to revive the party in the State, where we have been suffering electoral setbacks for the past several years,” said AICC general secretary Digvijay Singh. The Congress won 21 of the 80 Lok Sabha seats in the northern state. <br /><br />Singh is in charge of the party’s affairs in UP. He had several verbal duels with Amar Singh—his counterpart in the SP—during negotiations for sharing of Lok Sabha seats in the State. The negotiations failed and the two parties could not contest the elections together. <br /><br />“We must try to continue our efforts to regain strength in UP and other key states where we have not been very strong in the recent years,” said another senior leader of the party. <br /><br />Sources said the party might set for itself a target of reaching the 272 mark on its own in the 2014 elections. “I think people of India also want to see the Congress again in the same position where it had once been,” said a member of the Congress Working Committee.<br /><br />Reasons to worry<br /><br />Despite the decisive victory in the polls, the Congress, however, is not yet ready to take its principal challenger, Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), lightly. The party’s strategists rather found that the polls also threw up several reasons to worry. <br /><br />“The BJP has consolidated its position in Karnataka, Jharkhand and several other states. It has revived itself in Uttar Pradesh,” said a senior functionary of the Congress.<br />Several Congress leaders were of the view that the party won as many as six seats only because it went alone in Karnataka and there was no tie-up with JD(S). “Had we allied with the JD (S), it would have turned the State’s polity bipolar and the BJP would have won even more seats,” said the CWC member.<br /><br />Though the Congress Working Committee is expected to analyse poll-results in the coming weeks, the Congress’s key strategists said that the party should avoid making the polity bi-polar in as many states as possible, because wherever the BJP found itself on the other pole it could cause more damage to it (Congress).</p>
<p> As the party celebrates winning over 200 Lok Sabha seats alone in the just-concluded elections, its senior leaders see in the mandate the opportunity to march ahead to regain its lost glory in the coming days. <br /><br />Though the Congress officially said that it would not ditch its allies and take them along, several party veterans said it was the time to look beyond coalitions and strengthen itself further so that it could once again be in a position to claim power in the Centre on its own. The party had last secured absolute majority in the 543-member House in 1985.<br /> Its performance graph in the subsequent elections went down and it had to concede more political spaces not only to its rivals but also to the parties it had to ally with. <br /><br />But this time the Congress took a calculated risk by going it alone in Uttar Pradesh after its talks for sharing of seats with Mulayam Singh Yadav’s Samajwadi Party (SP) failed. <br />“The results clearly show that our decision to go alone in UP helped us to revive the party in the State, where we have been suffering electoral setbacks for the past several years,” said AICC general secretary Digvijay Singh. The Congress won 21 of the 80 Lok Sabha seats in the northern state. <br /><br />Singh is in charge of the party’s affairs in UP. He had several verbal duels with Amar Singh—his counterpart in the SP—during negotiations for sharing of Lok Sabha seats in the State. The negotiations failed and the two parties could not contest the elections together. <br /><br />“We must try to continue our efforts to regain strength in UP and other key states where we have not been very strong in the recent years,” said another senior leader of the party. <br /><br />Sources said the party might set for itself a target of reaching the 272 mark on its own in the 2014 elections. “I think people of India also want to see the Congress again in the same position where it had once been,” said a member of the Congress Working Committee.<br /><br />Reasons to worry<br /><br />Despite the decisive victory in the polls, the Congress, however, is not yet ready to take its principal challenger, Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), lightly. The party’s strategists rather found that the polls also threw up several reasons to worry. <br /><br />“The BJP has consolidated its position in Karnataka, Jharkhand and several other states. It has revived itself in Uttar Pradesh,” said a senior functionary of the Congress.<br />Several Congress leaders were of the view that the party won as many as six seats only because it went alone in Karnataka and there was no tie-up with JD(S). “Had we allied with the JD (S), it would have turned the State’s polity bipolar and the BJP would have won even more seats,” said the CWC member.<br /><br />Though the Congress Working Committee is expected to analyse poll-results in the coming weeks, the Congress’s key strategists said that the party should avoid making the polity bi-polar in as many states as possible, because wherever the BJP found itself on the other pole it could cause more damage to it (Congress).</p>
