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If you start hearing people say “that person should be prime minister,” you will have the answer to a question we heard a lot this election: “ Aur hai kaun? (Who’s the alternative?)” It is only and only another human being who becomes a mass leader and captures the public imagination. What could defeat Modi is not a party, not an alliance, not a freebie promise, not anti-incumbency.
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We have to think about this exactly as we think about the Presidential campaign in the United States. If Rahul Gandhi had allowed presidential campaigns around these faces in Rajasthan and MP, the Congress could have won larger victories.Īlso read: What do Modi haters say when confronted with the TINA factor?Īn ailing Congress can be replaced by a pan-India face who can mesmerise the people of India.
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In Madhya Pradesh, one will have to give credit to Kamal Nath, a leader with a pan-state presence, who was made the party’s state unit chief just months before the election. Popularity ratings of top politicians are now more important survey points than banal seat forecasts. It’s the top thing Indian voters seem to care about, for good reasons too. Note how people talk in terms of CM/PM faces. In Rajasthan, people were voting out Vasundhara Raje Scindia and voting in Ashok Gehlot, even as they were clear they’d prefer Modi to Rahul Gandhi for the Lok Sabha election. In Chhattisgarh, a change of leadership helped the Congress, as the OBC face of Bhupesh Baghel was trusted by people. It was the same in the Delhi state assembly election of 2015, in which the personality campaign of Arvind Kejriwal won 67 of 70 seats, making the BJP lose some seats on which Modi had himself campaigned. “ Kendra mein Modi, Bihar mein Nitish (Modi at the Centre, Nitish for Bihar),” is how many voters saw it and that’s what brought down the BJP vote-share enough to lose the election. All of these elections had a chief ministerial candidate (or likely hopeful) people were able to trust.īihar in 2015 wasn’t just the caste arithmetic of RJD and JD(U). While all these elections had different dynamics, there is one commonality. Bihar and Delhi in 2015, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and Chhattisgarh in 2018 were some examples. Under his watch, the BJP has lost many state assembly elections. That does not mean Narendra Modi is invincible. Neither caste nor sub-nationalism, neither anti-incumbency nor high index of opposition unity can bring him down. Modi has made the national election mercilessly presidential. It might win a state or three in the next five years but come 2024 and it would again be destroyed by Narendra Modi.Īlso read: The TINA factor & flailing opposition means Modi will win again, writes Arun Jaitley Even if he does, and the Congress gets another Sitaram Kesari, it would start withering away like it did under Sitaram Kesari. It is equally unlikely that he will abdicate the throne of Congress party president for someone more competent. A repeat of a 1977-like situation is, thus, highly unlikely.Ī revival of the Congress party is also improbable because it is unlikely that Rahul Gandhi will become a politician smarter than Modi and mesmerise the masses. He also knows what happened in 1977, the election that first gave mainstream legitimacy to Hindutva forces and propelled the Jana Sangh (predecessor of the BJP) to limelight.
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Many Modi critics hoped he would perform so poorly that voters would similarly boot him out even though the opposition has been as weak and fragmented as it was against Indira Gandhi. People were so angered by the Emergency, particularly by nasbandi, the enforced sterilisation of men. The only interruption to the Congress’ single party rule until 1989 was the post-Emergency election. This slow process might keep the BJP in power for a very long time, just like the Congress enjoyed single-party rule until 1989. The process might take decades and new forces might slowly replace it. The Congress is dying, surely but slowly. That’s what the BJP just did to the Left in West Bengal. That’s what the BJP is trying to do in Telangana. That’s what the Aam Aadmi Party did in Delhi. That’s what the BJP did in Tripura and Odisha. Its dormant vote share that doesn’t convert into seats can easily be stolen by another party. All it needs is a little push and it’ll collapse like a pack of cards. The Congress party is in terminal decline.