The Congress on Wednesday started a rally, called the Bharat Jodo Yatra, from Kanyakumari in Tamil Nadu, in an attempt to revive the party and re-create the brand of Rahul Gandhi before the next Lok Sabha elections in 2024.
Through a padayatra (political journey to galvanise supporters) of 3,570 km across 12 states, the Congress is hoping to raise electoral issues such as price rise, unemployment, rising economic inequality, polarisation, and bitter Centre-state relations to connect with the masses.
The party that ruled India most of the time since Independence in 1947, and most recently for 10 years between 2004 and 2014, is currently fighting for survival and hopes the protest foot march across the country will be a good beginning to address the questions raised about it and to arrest its rapid political downfall since 2014.
India has 28 states and eight union territories, with polls being held in all of them barring six UTs.
The states and UTs where the BJP and its allies have their governments now are Uttar Pradesh, Maharashtra, Karnataka, Madhya Pradesh, Gujarat, Haryana, Uttarakhand, Himachal Pradesh, Goa, Assam, Arunachal Pradesh, Meghalaya, Tripura, Manipur, Nagaland, Tripura, Mizoram, Sikkim, and Puducherry. The party is number two in West Bengal, Bihar, Rajasthan, Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand, and Delhi.
The BJP and its allies, in fact, have governments in states and union territories covering 49.31% of the Indian population, according to Census 2011 data. This covers 258 Lok Sabha seats.
The BJP’s rising graph, corresponding with the drastic fall of the Congress, can be viewed using key numbers. The party has 303 Lok Sabha MPs, more than the collective Lok Sabha seats in all states and union territories ruled by the party and its allies. Alliance-wise, it won 351 seats out of the 542 constituencies when the 2019 general elections were held.
It clearly represents the wide base of the party spreading across most of the states, including where it is not in government but a solid number two with a significant number of seats. The BJP, in fact, swept Rajasthan and Delhi in last the Lok Sabha polls and its rise reflects its nationwide appeal.
The Congress and its allies have governments in five states: Rajasthan, Chhattisgarh, Bihar, Jharkhand, and Tamil Nadu. While Rajasthan and Chhattisgarh have Congress-led governments, it is the junior partner in Bihar and Jharkhand. While it is in the ruling alliance in Tamil Nadu, it is not part of the government.
Together, they represent 25.05% of the Indian population. But when we count the Congress alone, in Rajasthan and Chhattisgarh, the two states share just 7.77% of the country’s populace. All five states together account for 129 Lok Sabha seats.
The presence of the Congress in the Lok Sabha correlates to its rapid downfall. The party had seen a historic low of 44 seats in the 2014 general elections. Its tally went up by just eight seats in 2019, and currently, the party has 53 MPs in the lower house. Once a pan-India party, the Congress is losing its appeal rapidly in state after state and is in desperate need of a way out. The grand old party, clearly, is losing its national influence.
The big difference between the BJP and the Congress is their stature in coalition governments. The BJP leads the ruling alliance wherever it is in electorally significant states, barring some states of the Northeast that do not carry much weight in Parliament, while the Congress is a junior partner in Bihar and Jharkhand.
In May 2014, when Lok Sabha and assembly elections in Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, Odisha, Arunachal Pradesh, and Sikkim were held, the Congress and its allies had governments in 13 states: Maharashtra, Kerala, Jammu & Kashmir, Karnataka, Haryana, Jharkhand, Himachal Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Arunachal Pradesh, Assam, Meghalaya, Manipur, and Mizoram.
That means the Congress and its allies had governments in states covering 27.58% of the Indian population, according to 2011 Census data. Undivided Andhra Pradesh had President’s rule from March 1 to June 2, 2014, but before that, it had a Congress government. Undivided Andhra Pradesh shares 6.98% of India’s population as per Census 2011. If we add that to 27.58%, it means the Congress and its allies ruled states covering 34.56% of the Indian population, or 193 Lok Sabha seats.
Several questions present themselves in light of the Bharat Jodo Yatra:
- Will this massive foot march be the first step towards Congress’s revival?
- Can it increase the political confidence inside the party across the country to some extent to prepare for the next step?
- Can it give the Congress back the ground lost with many senior leaders leaving the party?
- Can it resolve the survival issues like leadership, nepotism, and dynastic rule in the party that always clings to the Nehru-Gandhi family?
- Can it make the UPA the main fighting opposition bloc in the 2024 Lok Sabha elections?
- Can it make Rahul Gandhi a prime ministerial candidate supported by other parties?
Seeing the rapid downfall and the survival issues the party is facing, it is difficult to comment on the outcomes of this long political journey that has just begun. We need to wait and see, with only election results being the final conclusion. The country will witness nine assembly elections before the 2024 Lok Sabha polls, with Gujarat and Himachal Pradesh to have polling later this year. One will have to be patient to find out if the Congress has finally started moving in the right direction to make electoral inroads and secure its political future.
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