Number Theory: The Congress should worry about G-3 more than G-23

The Congress’s future will depend more on how it deals with the ‘Group of three’ — Mamata Banerjee, Sharad Pawar and Jagan Reddy — than the G-23.

On March 5, West Bengal chief minister and All India Trinamool Congress (AITC) leader Mamata Banerjee announced her party’s candidates for the forthcoming West Bengal elections. While addressing the press conference, Banerjee accused the Communist Party of India (Marxist) or CPI(M)-led Left Front and the Congress of having struck a friendship with the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). The Left Front and the Congress, along with the newly floated Indian Secular Front (ISF) of Abbas Siddiqui, a Muslim cleric, is the

Even though the Congress is a shadow of what it used to be, it still commands a sizeable vote share at the all-India level. (PTI)

2. DMK learnt its alliance lesson with Congress the hard way in Tamil Nadu in 2016

J Jayalalithaa created history of sorts in the 2016 Tamil Nadu elections, when she became the first chief minister to return to power since 1984. The All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (AIADMK) won 134 seats against the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam’s (DMK) tally of 89. The half-way mark in the Tamil Nadu assembly is 118. The difference in seat tally of the AIADMK and DMK was bigger than their strike rates, which were 57.8% and 50%. However, the DMK contested only 178 assembly constituencies compared to the 232 contested by the AIADMK. The Congress, which was the DMK’s biggest alliance partner, contested 41 ACs of which it could win only eight. An analysis of contests where the AIADMK and DMK contested against each other, and where they did not, underlines the fact that the DMK’s alliance partners played a big role in the party’s 2016 defeat. It is no wonder that the DMK and the Congress, along with the other allies including the CPI(M) and the Communist Party of India, have prolonged negotiations on seat-sharing in Tamil Nadu, with the former wanting to contest as many assembly constituencies as possible. Finally, the DMK has agreed to give 25 ACs to the Congress, much less than what it gave in 2016.

3. Does this mean the Congress has become a liability for its anti-BJP allies?

Not necessarily. Even though the Congress is a shadow of what it used to be, it still commands a sizeable vote share at the all-India level, and is the main challenger to the BJP in eight major states: Haryana, Punjab, Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Gujarat, Karnataka and Assam. The list excludes Himachal Pradesh and smaller states in the north-east. In three other big states, West Bengal (AITC), Maharashtra (NCP) and Andhra Pradesh (YSR Congress Party), parties which have come out of the Congress have outgrown it and are the major challengers to the BJP. When seen in this backdrop, the Congress is fighting what can be termed as a proxy war with its own supporters in these crucial states, which account for 115 out of the 543 Lok Sabha seats in the country.

Were the all-India leadership of the Congress to buy peace with these parties — this will only happen if the all-India leadership itself is part of the negotiations — the Congress’s fortunes might improve in the days to come. In recent months, the term G-23, which refers to 23 senior Congress leaders who signed a critical letter regarding the party’s functioning, has been attracting a lot of attention. The Congress’s future will depend more on how it deals with the ‘Group of three’ — Mamata Banerjee, Sharad Pawar and Jagan Reddy — than the G-23.

Abhishek Jha contributed to data analysis for the story; Source: TCPD