What is happening with Congress in Maha?

Just like those two states, there were enough indications before the elections that Maharashtra was slipping out of the Congress’ hands, but the party leadership did precious little to improve the situation

Following its rout in the just-concluded Assembly elections, question marks are being raised over the future of the Congress party. Even the hopefuls in the grand old party are wondering whether and when its fortunes will be revived. The status of the party in Maharashtra is not any better. Following a crushing defeat in the 2014 Assembly elections, the party is still struggling in the state that was once its citadel.

Call it a co-incidence or clearly visible examples of what was going wrong with the party—the situation in Kerala or Assam before the Assembly elections was not much different than the one prevailing in Maharashtra before the party lost this state to the BJP.

Just like those two states, there were enough indications before the elections that Maharashtra was slipping out of the Congress’ hands, but the party leadership did precious little to improve the situation.

In fact, the Congress’ downward trend was seen clearly in 2014 Lok Sabha elections, when the party won just two out of 48 parliamentary seats. Six months later, it lost power in the state. Then a section of the party blamed the Modi wave for the defeat, while others were not convinced. They thought things could have been different had the Congress worked out an alliance with Sharad Pawar’s Nationalist Congress Party and handled the ground level election management better. They also pointed out that Shiv Sena won 63 seats even as Uddhav Thackeray had launched a high-pitched campaign criticizing PM Modi who was then at the peak of his popularity.

We won’t know whether they were right. What we know is that the defeat of the Congress in Maharashtra was unprecedented. Its tally in the state Assembly was the lowest since the formation of the state—it was reduced to 42. Several Congress leaders had said that the corruption cases against the NCP affected the party, but ironically, the NCP won four seats in the Lok Sabha, against Congress’ two and its assembly tally was 41—just one less than the former.

Eighteen months after the defeat, the party is yet to recover from the shock. There have been some changes in the organization. The party has new leadership in the state. Former chief minister Ashok Chavan is now heading the state unit. Former minister Radhakrishna Vikhe-Patil is the opposition leader in the Assembly. The changes stop at that. Its leaders have still not got into the Opposition party mode. Many of them are not willing to criticize the state government where it does wrong. Some think it is too early to speak against the government, some don’t want their cordial relations with BJP ministers to be affected, while others are worried the government will take a closer look at the decisions taken by them as ministers. Following the arrest of Chhagan Bhujbal in connection with the Maharashtra Sadan case and reopening of the Adarsh prosecution case, there has been unease in the Congress-NCP camp.

On his part, Ashok Chavan is trying to galvanize the party cadre by holding district-wise sessions. A few functionaries such as spokesman Sachin Sawant (who exposed the chikki scam) have started attacking the ruling parties with allegations of wrongdoings.

However, the general impression in the party is these measures won’t be enough. They would need more than that. The party has failed to corner the government inside the legislature. It has also failed to bring the Opposition parties together. Above all, it has not managed to come out of the taint of scams during its rule both in the state as well as the Centre. The party faces an uphill task in convincing the people that it will safeguard their interests.

Will Ashok Chavan and Co. manage to do that? We will get first indication in next year’s ‘mini-assembly elections’ when most civic bodies and district councils go to polls.