While the Congress party has made steady upward movement in some states or maintained their steady number despite anti-incumbency, they have constantly missed the bus when it comes to forming the government.A lot can be attributed to the state level leadership of the party that has some how failed to understand the
role they need to play in support of the central leadership. Although the organization has improved at the grass root level, its effort are inadequate in trying to catch up with a much ahead rival in BJP, that has not only mastered the art of booth level startegies, but is also more popular party among the people.
The congress cadre can be seen working harder than before but there have been constant failures at local-level organization within the Congress, and despite the central leadership and its team’s increased efforts, the party continues its dismal show.
The party also seems to be missing the wake up alarm that it needs to respond to at the grass root and state level politics for an over all show at the national level, rather than the inverse, and what adds to its worries is the notional blame on central leadership.
In addition, irrespective of learning from their mistakes at the ground level in every state there have been constant references to the central leadership failures in designing outcomes for the party by Ashok Gehlot, CP Joshi, KC Venugopal and even Rahul Gandhi.
Ahead of the future Congress conclave and in light of the the recent development of blame game that has already begun in the hassled party, what Congress needs to address is designing the pull at its grass-root and state level local teams rather than once again missing the shot.
There have been many leaders without whom it is virtually impossible to imagine the Congress party: Be it Ashok Gehlot of Rajasthan, Janardhan Dwivedi, CP Joshi or Sushil Kumar Shinde, to name a few.
In the year 2015, during Bihar elections, Prime Minister Narendra Modi had put up an aggressive campaign in the state and had addressed over 30 rallies to negate any probable effect of The Grand Alliance (JDU, RJD & Congress) factor in Bihar. But all the three parties together were able to give a setback to BJP’s dream to form a government in the state.
After the results were declared, the efforts made by C.P. Joshi to bring two political rivals (Nitish Kumar & Lalu Prasad Yadav) under the same roof was applauded by everyone. however, with the passage of time, his own party members have started saying that Joshi doesn’t have any futuristic vision for the party.
When we talk about Congress’ poor performance in the state of Assam, it could be seen that the party lost most of their MLAs in the upper Assam region. This region is dominated by the people belonging to Ahom caste, and it was Tarun Gogoi (of the same caste) who led the Congress party election campaign in Assam during the previous state elections where they couldn’t gather support. However there was an increase of significant 2.5 percent vote share.
When we talk about Manipur, we would find that Ibobi Singh was leading all the party members in the state and under his leadership the party lost maximum MLAs from Maiti dominated region. Under the leadership of Mukul Sangma, Congress party lost crucial constituencies in the Garo Hills region in the state of Meghalaya.
It must be understood that before Joshi was given the charge of northeastern states, Congress party had already lost their stronghold in the state of Nagaland as 10 MLAs had already left the party. Similar turn of events took place in the state of Tripura, where 9 MLAs left the Congress party to join TMC and just before the elections in the state they switched over to BJP.
Joshi was nowhere in the scene when the party loyalist were leaving Congress for other parties. Before putting up any allegations on the veterans of the game, Congress needs to pay heed to its local state level leadership hues.
We believe that the party should not adhere to the blame-game politics which seems to be happening within the party just before the vital congress conclave which may mark the begining or the end.
There has been the meteoric rise of Narendra Modi under whose leadership the BJP soar to dizzying heights in 2014 general elections. To be fair to Rahul Gandhi’s headship, it is noteworthy that his endeavors to infuse the party with fresh ideas and new young faces are highly commendable.
Yet, despite its central leadership and its teams’ increased efforts, Congress continues with its dismal performance in almost all the states where it is the state leadership the has somehow failed the pulse. Is it that the party is missing the wake-up alarm to immediately get cracking at the grass root and state level politics?
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