Little good news for Cong since 2004

New Delhi: The Congress, since 2004, has lost elections in 13 states, including in places where it was ruling.

The Congress defeated the BJP to rule at the Centre but since then it has been a rough ride for the party. The trend began in Karnataka in May 2004 itself when it failed to get majority on its own and had to take the coalition route with H D Deve Gowda's JD(S) to retain power.

This was in spite of the fact that the then Chief Minister S M Krishna was being projected as the best in the country who had turned Bangalore into Silicon Valley of the country.

While it won the Centre and trounced Chandrababu Naidu in Andhra Pradesh, its challenge to the BJD in Orissa also collapsed in 2004.

The Congress retained Maharashtra in the October elections that year with the Congress and NCP alliance becoming successful in checkmating Shiv Sena-BJP combine.

It won in Haryana in 2005 but it was defeated in Jharkhand and Bihar. In 2006, the Left drove the Congress-led UDF away from power in Kerala and also made mincemeat of the Congress challenge in West Bengal.

The only consolation for the Congress was its retaining power in Assam and Puducherry. The year 2007 was virtually the waterloo of Congress as it lost power in Punjab and Uttarakhand, had a poor show in Uttar Pradesh and Narendra Modi-led BJP shook off its challenge easily in Gujarat.

The only victories in 2007 were in tiny Goa and Manipur. The current year too has been a flop show for the Congress having lost elections in Tripura, Meghalaya, Nagaland and now Karnataka.