Congress dreams of resurrection

Jairam Ramesh has been pitching for Congress leadership of any grand Opposition alliance for the 2024 general elections. The Rajya Sabha member who has been walking along with Rahul Gandhi on the Bharat Jodo Yatra feels that the Congress should be the pivot of any Opposition formation which wishes to take on the BJP. This expectation from Congress and Rahul Gandhi‘s camp, in particular, is not new. The only problem is—there are few takers for this among other parties like the TMC, BRS, and SP, not to speak of AAP. All these parties feel that they are equally entitled to the leadership of a bigger Opposition alliance in 2024 to face the ruling BJP. Enthused by what they see as the success of Rahul Gandhi‘s Bharat Jodo Yatra, many Congress leaders tend to feel that the party can afford to go it alone in the general elections. However, others in Congress prefer a more calibrated and consensual approach, like the party’s president, Mallikarjun Kharge, it is believed, to form a broader UPA-like alliance. It is said that Sonia Gandhi also prefers this approach based on the success of the UPA. As things stand, apart from the DMK in Tamil Nadu, NCP, and the Uddhav Thackeray faction of Shiv Sena in Maharashtra, there are few parties that wish to accept the role of Congress as their big brother in the 2024 elections. Outfits like the Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) of the Badals in Punjab, Progressive Democratic Party (PDP) led by Mehbooba Mufti and Farooq Abdullah’s National Conference in Jammu and Kashmir, have either lost their relevance or have no electoral muscle, so to speak. In UP, neither the Samajwadi Party (SP) nor Mayawati’s Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) would like to see Congress as their leader. With the success of his Khammam rally, the BRS founder and Telangana Chief Minister, Kalvakuntla Chandrashekar Rao feels that he can now step into the national spotlight and gain electoral advantage. West Bengal Chief Minister, and TMC supremo, Mamata Banerjee believes that she is a national leader in her own right, capable of leading any Opposition alliance against the BJP, and has also found some backers, like for example, the Nobel laureate, Amartya Sen. Delhi Chief Minister, Arvind Kejriwal of the Aam Aadmi Party has not shied away from going public with his grandiose dreams of taking on Prime Minister Narendra Modi at the hustings. As such, he is unlikely to look up to Rahul Gandhi as a better contender for this position. Where does the Congress stand on the ground without its few alliance partners? Barring success in the hill state of Himachal Pradesh, the Congress has seen few victories in recent elections. Going forward, in 2024, the party has to brace itself for close contests, in Lok Sabha polls in the states of Karnataka, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, Maharashtra, Chhattisgarh, and Jharkhand, where it has some presence or, is the ruling party. The next few months will hold the key to any resurrection of the grand old party. Analysts, however, do not see the success of Rahul Gandhi‘s Bharat Jodo Yatra translating into votes across the country.