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| Congress losing its hold across the country, including J&K | | National Scene | | Rustam
JAMMU, Mar 10: Will the Congress win the next general elections and form government at the centre third time in a row? If the today's national scene is any indication, then it can be safely said that the Congress is out to bite dust across the country, that the BJP would emerge as the single largest party and that a number of major states would vote for regional parties.
That the Congress has lost its support-base to the BJP and other non-Congress parties could be seen from the number of states being ruled by the non-Congress formations and these are all major states, which return to the Lok Sabha almost 75 per cent members out of 542 members. The Biju Janata Dal (BJD) is ruling Orissa. The Trinamoool Congress (TMC) is ruling West Bengal. The Janata Dal - United (JD-U)-BJP combine is ruling Bihar. The BJP is ruling Jharkhand. The Samajwadi Party (SP) has captured Uttar Pradesh from the Bahujan Samajwadi Party (BSP). The Congress may form government in Uttrakhand, but will it survive is a billion-dollar question. The Congress has 32 members in the 70-member House, as against the BJP's 31. Besides, the Congress in this state is divided into five groups. The Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD)-BJP combine is ruling Punjab. The BJP is ruling Himachal Pradesh. The NC, which has 28 members in the assembly, is ruling Jammu and Kashmir with the Congress being its junior partner. The Congress has no say whatever in the governance of the state. The BJP is ruling Madhya Pradesh, as also Chhattisgarh, Bihar, Gujarat, Karnataka and Goa. The AIDMK of J Jayalalitha is ruling Tamil Nadu. The Left parties are ruling Tripura.
The Congress is ruling Haryana, Delhi, Rajasthan, Andhra Pradesh, Assam, Manipur, Kerala and a couple of tiny northeast states, including Manipur. The Congress is also ruling Maharashtra in collaboration with the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP). The Congress is at the receiving end in Haryana, Delhi and Rajasthan. Indications are that the people of these three states would reject the Congress as and when assembly elections are held there. A strong wind is blowing against the Congress in these three states. It's anti-incumbency that will mar the electoral prospects of this so-called national party. The Congress is sure to suffer a humiliating defeat in Maharashtra in the assembly elections in the manner it suffered reverses in the just-held civic elections across Maharashtra. The Congress's position is rather weak in Andhra Pradesh. The Congress is faction-ridden and the parties like Telgu Desam, Telangana Rashtra Samiti and the break-away group of the Congress party led by Jagan Nath Reddy - apart from the BJP in certain pockets - are there to upset the Congress calculations. The Congress is also not standing on a strong wicket in Kerala where it has to reckon with the Left parties. Remember, the Congress defeated the Left parties in the 2011 assembly elections by a margin of just .05 per cent votes. The only state where the Congress is in a strong position is Assam where the opposition is vertically divided into several groups.
The problem of the Congress party is that it has no strong leader in any of the states who is capable of winning over the electorate. Its biggest problem is that even the Gandhis likes Sonia Gandhi, Rahul Gandhi and Priyanka Gandhi have lost their appeal. They are not the vote-catchers. That no one today takes them seriously could be seen from the fact that the Congress could win only 2 out of 10 seats in the Amethi and Rae Bareli parliamentary constituencies in the just-concluded assembly elections in UP. These constituencies are represented by Rahul Gandhi and Sonia Gandhi. The Congress suffered humiliating defeat in these constituencies, notwithstanding the aggressive campaigning by Priyanka Gandhi for almost 30 days. Remember, the Congress candidates came third in the 8 assembly segments in these two pocket-boroughs of Gandhi family.
The moral of the story is that if general elections are held today, the Congress would not win even 80 Lok Sabha seats. It has become so unpopular. The fact of the matter is that the anti-UPA wave is sweeping the country. The reasons are arrogance, scamps, corruption, inefficient governance, rising prices, inflation, weak foreign policy, politics of communalism, disrespect for constitutional institutions, attempts at creating schism in the society, trust deficit and disconnect between the rulers and the ruled. |
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