After setback in assembly polls, Congress braces for a make-or-break 2024

New Delhi: Fresh from the setbacks in the assembly elections of Hindi heartland states of Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and Chhattisgarh, the Congress is bracing for a make-or-break 2024, the year of the 18th Lok Sabha election.

As Prime Minister Narendra Modi hopes to equal Jawaharlal Nehru's record of returning to the PMO thrice in a row, the new year is also being seen by many as one of the toughest periods for the Congress in its 138-year journey.

It will also mark 40 years since Congress scaled its electoral peak in 1984 winning a record 414 Lok Sabha seats. With just 48 seats in the Lower House of Parliament now, the party has experienced a steady decline in the last 10 years.

In 2024, as Congress hopes to arrest its downward slide, it will face multiple challenges, the topmost being finalising seat-sharing deals with constituents of the anti-BJP I.N.D.I.A bloc, which is yet to make any electoral impact.

The Congress will begin these negotiations on a weak footing, having lost the Hindi heartland states of Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and Chhattisgarh to the BJP. The defeats have upset the Congress' calculations as it was hoping to sustain the momentum gained by the victories in Himachal Pradesh in 2022 and in Karnataka in 2023.

The losses are most likely to prove demoralizing for the party cadre just ahead of the 2024 general elections as the Hindi belt states play a major role in determining the outcome. In 2019, the BJP had won 141 seats -- 71 per cent of those contested -- in the Hindi heartland.

A poll analyst feels that the 2024 Lok Sabha polls are significant for the Congress considering that it has lost two general elections badly. It is a "make or break situation for the party now," the analyst said.

The Congress is now in power on its own in just three states -- Himachal Pradesh Karnataka and Telangana. While Himachal Pradesh is the only north Indian state the party now rules it has just four Lok Sabha seats. However, in the southern states, the party appears to be consolidating.

After being virtually wiped off the Hindi belt, the Congress would need to devise new plans to capture voters' imagination. The BJP has pitched "Modi ki guarantee" and the PM's "four castes -- women, youth, poor and farmers" to counter the Congress' freebies and caste census plans, respectively.

With caste census, sops, and anti-Adani campaign yet to generate any mass appeal, the party has gone back to announce a second edition of Bharat Jodo Yatra by Rahul Gandhi hoping to reconnect with the people.

The hybrid (by bus and by foot) Bharat Nyay Yatra from Manipur to Maharashtra will begin on January 14 and cover 14 states.

It will be flagged off by Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge from Imphal and will pass through Nagaland, Assam, Meghalaya, West Bengal, Bihar, Jharkhand, Odisha, Chhattisgarh, Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, Gujarat and Maharashtra, traversing 6,200 km through 85 districts.

The march is being seen as politically significant in the wake of the 2024 Lok Sabha elections, which are likely to be held in April-May. The announcement of the polls may coincide with the last leg of the Yatra.

Kharge recently said that when everyone gets united, Prime Minister Narendra Modi would not be able to do anything. "The more you try to crush us, the more we will rise. We are fighting unitedly to save the country and democracy," he had said.

Asserting that it is ready for polls, the Congress held its "Hain Taiyaar Hum" mega rally in Nagpur to mark its foundation day. The party has also been holding consultations with state leaders for the past several days on Lok Sabha poll preparedness and is leaving nothing to chance.

Though upbeat about reversing its fortunes, the Congress remains acutely conscious of the challenges ahead.

The first roadblock to successful seat-sharing talks within the I.N.D.I.A bloc has come from within the party as its Punjab and Delhi units openly warned against any Lok Sabha truck with AAP.

With the internal dynamics unclear, it remains to be seen how Congress, the largest constituent of the I.N.D.I.A bloc will strengthen the alliance and forge seat-wise understanding between professed rivals -- the TMC and CPI(M) in Bengal; the Left and itself in Kerala, and with the AAP in Punjab and Delhi.

Already the smaller parties of the I.N.D.I.A alliance are advising the Congress to be prepared to sacrifice more than it is ready to.

Former Uttar Pradesh chief minister Akhilesh Yadav-led Samajwadi Party has been openly voicing its concerns with what he calls "Congress' arrogance as evidenced in lack of understanding with the SP in Madhya Pradesh."

The TMC and AAP have meanwhile thrown a spanner in the wheels of the bloc by proposing Congress chief Mallikarjun Kharge as the coalition's PM face knowing well that the grand old party is in favour of collective leadership with rank and file behind Rahul Gandhi as their leader.

With leadership issues, a common minimum agenda and seat sharing yet to be resolved, the I.N.D.I.A bloc currently looks scattered while the BJP continues to set the narrative, the latest being putting opposition parties in a spot by inviting all their top leaders for the consecration ceremony at the Ram temple in Ayodhya on January 22.

The move has divided the opposition, with Congress undecided on attending the event.

On the other hand, the BJP has launched "Modi ki guarantee" as its 2024 poll plank daring the opposition to open its cards on the leadership issue so that the narrative that emerges is "Modi versus who." The Congress for its part says it will enter the Lok Sabha polls with the plank "we not me", and will project a collective leadership.

Whether the Congress' recipe of a leaderless anti-BJP coalition can match the Modi juggernaut remains to be seen.

In the meantime, the Congress hopes to work on an alternative positive agenda for the 2024 elections and unite secular forces against the BJP.

The party's guiding principle as it enters the new year is contained in its Raipur Plenary Political Resolution which reads, "Unity of secular and socialist forces will be the hallmark of the future of the Congress party."