JOIN USBut for infighting, 2022 could be better for Congress
Seven states have had Assembly polls in 2020 and 2021. Except for Tamil Nadu, where it was a minor constituent of the winning alliance, the Congress party and its allies lost in the rest of the six states. However, 2022 could be better for the Congress party in the seven Assembly elections slated during the following year.
Barring Uttar Pradesh, where it is a fringe player, the Congress is one of the two principal players in the arena in the rest six and could win all of them. Similarly, the Congress party has a good chance of either winning or retaining most of the nine states scheduled for elections in 2023.
A good performance in the 16 Assembly polls in 2022 and 2023 will be the wind that the Congress would need under its wings to put up a stiffer challenge against the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in the 2024 Lok Sabha polls.
This where the current spate of infighting in several of the Congress party's state units, including the poll-bound states in 2022-23, is intriguing.
The emergence of a putative federal front is good news for a more consultative democracy. Still, the 2019 Lok Sabha results are proof that any such coalition cannot on its own unseat the BJP unless the Congress party beats it in most of the Hindi heartland and states like Karnataka.
Here is why the Congress performance in these states is key to the 2024 Lok Sabha polls.
The Congress party bagged 52-seats in 2019. Of these, as many as 39 were where the BJP was not even the runner up. Thirty-one of its seats came from three states – Kerala (15), Punjab and Tamil Nadu (eight each) – all of which are where the BJP was not its principal opponent.
To put it simply, the BJP could secure 282-seats in 2014 and 303-seats in 2019 because it blanked out the Congress party in the 150-odd seats where the two are principal rivals.
The seven poll-bound states in 2022 are Uttar Pradesh, Goa, Manipur, Uttarakhand and Punjab in February-March of that year, and Himachal Pradesh and Gujarat in November-December.
According to party sources, Congress president Sonia Gandhi has asked state units heading for polls to bury their internal differences.
In Punjab, a three-member panel is already in place to resolve the impasse between the rebels and Chief Minister Amarinder Singh.
In Uttarakhand, the ruling BJP is in disarray after the change in leadership. The Congress is confident of winning next year's election. Former CM Harish Rawat is keen he is declared the chief ministerial candidate of the party soonest. The central leadership has requested party factions, led by Rawat and Indira Hridayesh, to bury the hatchet.
Uttarakhand's neighbouring hill state of Himachal Pradesh goes to the polls a few months later. Here again, public anger is simmering against the ruling BJP. Congress leader, former CM, Virbhadra Singh, is ailing. His loyalists, including Asha Kumari, Mukesh Agnihotri and Sudhir Sharma, have held meetings to ensure the party projects someone from their camp as the chief ministerial candidate.
Himachal Pradesh will also have by-polls to three Assembly and one Lok Sabha seat, and the results could indicate the public mood.
Himachal Pradesh has not returned an incumbent government since 1985. Uttarakhand has not sent back an incumbent government since its creation in 2000.
The Congress is confident of winning Goa and Manipur, two states where it had emerged as the single largest party in 2017 polls as well, but the BJP beat it in government formation thanks to backroom manoeuvres.
As for Uttar Pradesh, some believe the party should pursue its West Bengal and Delhi strategy. The Congress party had followed this in 2019 as well. It had put up a fight only on a handful of the seats lest it harmed the prospects of the Samajwadi Party and Bahujan Samaj Party alliance to defeat the BJP.
There is already disquiet among Congress party's supporters in UP at Urdu poet Imran Pratapgarhi's appointment as the Congress minority cell chief. Some Muslim community leaders have publicly complained that the party is not serious about the UP Assembly polls as it has picked someone with no political experience.
The Congress party also needs to set its house in order in Gujarat. It will soon announce the in-charge for Gujarat, who will prepare the state unit for the crucial 2022 Assembly polls.
As it mulls the Gujarat appointment, the Sachin Pilot camp in Rajasthan has said it is unhappy. It has said Chier Minister Ashok Gehlot had not heeded its demands. Incidentally, Gehlot was the election in charge of the Congress for the 2017 Gujarat Assembly polls.
In Chhattisgarh, as Chief Minister Bhupesh Baghel completes two and a half years, there are murmurs that he should quit as part of the deal agreed upon when the Congress won the Assembly polls in December 2018, and TS Singh Deo should replace him. However, Baghel has consolidated his position within the party.
Several appointments and sackings are in the works in the Congress party as party chief Sonia Gandhi hopes to quit the post on a winning note, party sources say.