JOIN USThe Congress was the first among the three major parties to release its manifesto.
This might end up being the only achievement of the party this election season when it is expected to trail badly behind the Bharatiya Janata Party and the Aam Aadmi Party.
The manifesto offered cheap power, but that point appeared to be borrowed from the AAP. It also mentioned right to shelter for the poor, but BJP here did one better by offering houses at the spot where slums now stand.
Compared to the other two, the Congress campaign was a dull affair with poor response from the voters.
Congress was out with its candidates list much before the BJP, but the advantage was soon marred by the exit of several of its leaders, Krishna Tirath being among the most notable.
After a point of time, politicians quitting the party stopped drawing much attention.
When former MLA from Deoli, Arvinder Singh Lovely, left Congress to join BJP, some media outlets initially mistook him for the Congress state unit chief.
Little was done by the party to clear the air and the wrong news ran online for hours after that.
Another notable exit was that of Sanjay Puri, administrator of Congress party's Delhi wing website. Before leaving, he took down the party website. The website has not been restored since.
Even as the party was faring badly in its offline battle, its social media team was catching up with the other two rival parties only at a snail’s pace.
When compared to the BJP and AAP, Delhi Congress Twitter handle is far from active.
When asked about the poor online presence, a member of its social media team had told Deccan Herald that the handle was newly created.
Little progress is visible three weeks later with less than 350 tweets till Friday evening. In comparison, BJP’s Delhi account has about 7,500 posts so far. AAP’s sole official account, existent since 2012, has tweeted over 34,000 times: unlike the city-specific BJP and the Congress accounts, AAP only has only one national account.
Adverse surveys
Most pre-poll surveys have predicted Congress will perform poorer than the last time. So, when its state unit chief Lovely was directed to not contest the polls and instead devote time to rebuilding the party, his supporters were up in arms.
“It was foolish to let go of that one seat where Congress victory was assured,” party worker Darshan Lal’s had then said.
The party has not made big claims. During the early stages itself, former Delhi chief minister Sheila Dikshit portrayed the party mood by announcing that Congress would again support AAP if required.
However, Ajay Maken, leading the party’s Delhi campaign, has been rallying support for himself and other candidates tirelessly despite receiving poor response.
A few rallies by Rahul Gandhi and one by Sonia drew decent crowds. Local party leaders said more rallies by these two leaders would have improved their chances. In any case, their rallies were not a cause of concern for the BJP and the AAP which kept repeating that Congress was not in the race.