2012-2022: Congress’ decade of decline

First Voice, Last Word

The Congress is confronting its most serious crisis in its electoral history since 1951. Since the 2019 debacle in the Lok Sabha elections, the second in a row, it has not won a majority in a single state assembly election on its own. From 400 plus MPs in Lok Sabha in 1984, the current number of parliamentarians including the Rajya Sabha ones, is just 84 out of a total of 793. Never before in the history of the party, have, they had this low of fewer than 100 seats in both Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha. In all the states across India, Congress has 695 MLAs while the BJP which has almost double that with 1383 MLAs. It's not surprising since they didn't win even one of the 5 states that saw elections recently — Uttar Pradesh (UP), Uttarakhand, Goa, Punjab and Manipur What's exacerbating the problem is the constant exit of high-profile leaders, the most recent is Ghulam Nabi Azad but there has been a flood- Jyotiraditya Scindia, RPN Singh, Sushmita Dev, Sunil Jakhar are just some of the leaders who have left for either the BJP or because they see no future in the Grand old party. The exits and public outbursts have become a major problem for the party trying to invent itself with a Bharat Jodo Yatra. Rahul Gandhi will walk from Southern India to the North, in an effort to galvanise people against the BJP but it's more of a non-political effort. The yatra will come also in the midst of the Congress' organisational elections and the Congress President will be announced in October. But in this episode, Sunetra Choudhury looks at the larger challenges that the new President faces. Speaking to the author and journalist Rasheed Kidwai, she distils Congress' problems to five major factors- Human Resources, Leadership Confusion, Communication, Lack of modern tools and finally, Funding. Listen for more