As far as Congress performance in the Delhi assembly election is concerned, the less said, the better.
To draw blank in one polls, despite ruling the state for 15 years in a row, is rare, perhaps an exception. But to repeat the abysmal performance after five long years is something unprecedented. It needs extraordinary amounts of incapability and irresponsibility.
The Aam Aadmi Party's (AAP) stunning retention of power in the national capital has already triggered discourses about the Arvind Kejriwal-led outfit's ability to replace the Congress as the principal opposition party in the country.
Such hasty interpretation could be wild extrapolation.
Still, there are several lessons the AAP's performance can offer the Congress, including its Kerala unit which is at the moment the only state wing that can at least dare to dream about coming back to power.
A Congress national leader Onmanorama spoke to after the election results were announced was highly sceptical about the party's chances in Kerala in the next assembly polls, due for next year, going by the current trend of elections.
He said the Congress will have to project a charismatic leader against CPM's Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan, who, some feel, has a chance to retain power.
“Trends visible not only in Indian states but across the world show that people are inclined to select a leader rather than a party. Unfortunately, Congress lacks such a leader at the Centre and the states. As for Kerala, there are already talks of Pinarayi, not CPM, retaining power. Congress has to work overtime to change that perception,” he said.
The Congress in Kerala is currently a divided house with former chief minister Oommen Chandy and leader of the opposition Ramesh Chennithala leading two factions. The two are said to be harbouring chief ministerial ambitions. Kerala Pradesh Congress Committee (KPCC) chief Mullappally Ramachandran, who doesn't belong to either of these groups, is also not considered as a unifying figure.
The Congress leader said the Delhi results showed that minority votes would not always stand with the Congress. “Muslims, who have been traditionally voting for Congress, ditched the party, sensing that we had no chance of winning. To be frank, the people of Delhi did not even consider Congress as a contender. There's no point in whitewashing that fact with claims like we helped the AAP to stop BJP from coming to power,” he said.
He also hailed Kejriwal's development politics that mattered to “the people who vote”.
'Fears are out of context'
Young leader and former MLA P C Vishnunath, however, dismissed the fears as out of context. “Delhi polls can't be compared with Kerala. The situations are completely different. I don't think Pinarayi can garner positive votes for his ruling. Remember that the people did not vote for Pinarayi alone in 2016 assembly polls. V S Achuthanandan was their star campaigner then. The 2019 Lok Sabha polls were the first time the CPM fought the polls under Pinarayi as CM, and we know the results of it,” he said.
The CPM-led LDF had lost 19 out of 20 seats to the Congress-led UDF in the Lok Sabha polls. But then, there is something the Congress should worry about. In Delhi, the AAP had gone to the third position behind the Congress in the Lok Sabha polls, apparently as the people viewed it as a fight between the BJP and Congress.
