Bihar Results: Congress Fortune Remains Unchanged, Nearing a “Century” of Defeats

Manas Dasgupta

NEW DELHI, Nov 14: There is no change of fortune for the Congress. After a very dismal show in the national capital finishing with zero seats in three consecutive elections to the Delhi Assembly, the Grand Old Party was virtually demolished in Bihar on Friday.

The Congress is likely to win only seats out of the 61 it contested, far worse than its last time’s performance of 19 seats out of the 70 it contested in 2020. The Congress lost seats to the BJP, the Janata Dal (United) and even young boy Chirag Paswan’s Lok Janshakti Party.

What is more, the Congress is trailing in all the seats through which its leader Rahul Gandhi passed through during his recent “Voter Adhikar Yatra” to protest against the “Special Intensive Revision” of the voters’ roll by the Election Commission of India.

That yatra was supposed to kickstart the Congress’ Bihar plan, to prime its voters to realise the ‘vote chori‘ being perpetuated by the BJP in collusion with the Election Commission, to galvanise them into dumping the JDU and the ‘forever’ Chief Minister, Nitish Kumar.

The yatra travelled over 1,300 km to cover 23 districts in 16 days. It was a good start; Rahul Gandhi was visible and meeting voters, till he was not. But then the yatra finished. Gandhi disappeared. And voters, disillusioned not only by his absence but the apparent lack of a plan, any plan to develop Bihar and find jobs its nearly 50 lakh unemployed men and women, turned to the BJP, which said it had a plan – for jobs and infrastructure growth.

And once the BJP rolled out its big guns, when the Mahagathbandhan needed the optic of Tejashwi Yadav and Rahul Gandhi on stage together, the Congress was slow to respond. It wasn’t till October 29, a week before the first phase of polling, that the two leaders occupied the same space.

A party worker from Bhagalpur echoed the frustration. “We are putting up posters, holding roadshows… but without Rahul Gandhi it feels incomplete…” A second was more scathing in his criticism, laying into Gandhi and senior alliance leaders for mismanaging the campaign, right from seat-sharing squabbles.

Allies Rashtriya Janata Dal weren’t amused either. Multiple sources in the party grumbled about an ally that fights ‘half-heartedly’, possibly with bitter memories of the 2020 election still fresh. And sans a miracle the RJD was never going to win if it had to drag the Congress along, particularly if Rahul Gandhi was missing. In the build-up to this election, the Congress defended its strategy, part of which was supposedly Gandhi’s shift from crowd politics to issue-based politics, such as the ‘vote chori‘ campaign.

The Bihar election adds to a long list of defeats for Gandhi’s Congress, a list the BJP’s Amit Malviya gleefully tweeted, declaring, “Rahul Gandhi! Another election, another defeat!” The count, the BJP claims, is now 95. If accurate, then the Congress and Gandhi will want to avoid that ‘century’.

Criticism has erupted from within the Congress too. Senior leaders like Nikhil Kumar, the former Nagaland and Kerala Governor, said, “This reflects the weakness of our organisation. In any election, a party relies on its organisational strength. If the organisation is weak the outcome suffers.”

Congress leader Mumtaz Patel, daughter of the party stalwart Ahmed Patel, said it was time to “accept reality.” “No excuses, No blame game No introspection, it’s time to look within and accept reality.” “No excuses, No blame game No introspection, it’s time to look within and accept reality. Till when will countless loyal ground workers who have stayed with the party through thick and thin …wait to see success … instead it’s failure after failure due to power concentrated in the hands of few who are totally disconnected with ground reality and are responsible for the misery and rout of the grand old party time and again,” Patel posted on X.

“And mark my words these same people will be rewarded again and again because they have made themselves indispensable with their control and power,” she added. There were voices in support, too. With most blame being directed towards the Election Commission. Senior leaders Mani Shankar Aiyar and Shashi Tharoor also spoke up.

Critics will also point out the Congress has still not solved the existential crisis that sparked five years ago, after a horrible performance in the 2020 federal election. Then a group of dissenters, the ‘G-23′, wrote to Sonia Gandhi demanding changed leadership and accountability.

Yes, the Congress has won elections since; victory in Karnataka and Telangana in 2023 will go some way towards answering those critics, but it is not enough. It is not enough to maintain the Congress’ position as the senior-most opposition party in the country.

“The organisation should have worked strategically, intelligently and maintained a strong presence across all constituencies. It’s a total failure of the organisation. And I can say this with conviction that had our organisation been strong, the result of our candidates would have been different,” said Anand, a former IPS officer and the son of Bihar former Chief Minister and veteran Congress leader Satyendra Narayan Sinha.

MP Shashi Tharoor, who recently wrote an article ‘Indian Politics Are a Family Business arguing Indian politics continue to remain a family enterprise, pointed out said his party was “not the senior partner” in the Bihar alliance. “They (NDA) are leading by a rather large margin. But let’s wait for the Election Commission to discuss and disclose the results. I am sure that the party (Congress) has a responsibility to study in detail the causes. But remember, we were not the senior partner in the alliance, and that RJD also has to look carefully at its own performance. But I will say that on a matter like this, it’s very important that we look at the totality of our performance,” Tharoor said.

“As I said, the initial trends in itself show that Gyanesh Kumar appears to be succeeding against the people of Bihar. This fight is not between the BJP, Congress, RJD, and JDU. This is a direct fight between Gyanesh Kumar and the people of India,” Congress leader – Pawan Khera told reporters. Bhupesh Baghel, former Chief Minister of Chhattisgarh, too blamed the Chief Election Commissioner.

“One person is responsible for this result- Gyanesh Kumar. I congratulate him. 65 lakh votes were deleted, and 21 lakh voters were added. This magic has been done by Gyanesh Kumar… Gyanesh Kumar has made all the efforts alone. Congratulations to him,” Bhupesh Baghel said.

The Congress’ Ashok Gehlot blamed the Election Commission for being a “mook darshak (mute spectator)” as Rs 10,000 was being distributed while the polls were on, suggesting that it was a form of “vote chori (vote theft)”, something Rahul Gandhi has been campaigning against.

“EC mookdarshak bana raha, usne kyun nahi roka. 10,000 bat rahe the chunav chalte hue, rokna chahiye tha, roka hi nahi unhone… Iska matlab jo Rahul Gandhi vote chori ki baat kar rahe the, vote chori kya hota hai, yahi toh hota hai (EC was a mute spectator. Why did it not stop when Rs 10,000 was being distributed while the polls were on? It did not stop it. Rahul Gandhi has been speaking about vote theft. What is vote theft? This is vote theft,” said Gehlot, who is a poll observer for the Congress in Bihar.