Discuss the causes of decline of congress
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Answer:
Explanation:
The Congress party which was on a high in last December after winning three major heartland states has plunged into a crisis again after the 23rd of May results. Suddenly nothing is going right for the Congress at the national level or in key states. Just eight additional seats as compared to 2014 is certainly not an improvement which the party can tom-tom about. The party is going about looking for scapegoats to blame the 2019 Lok Sabha debacle on.
The prospects in key states like Maharashtra and Haryana where the party was a major force up to 2013, look bleak in the run-up to the assembly elections. The Congress has been reduced to a number four party in Maharashtra and could just win one seat in the Lok Sabha polls. Considering that they had a small base of two seats in the 2014 Lok Sabha polls, Congress still managed to suffer a 50% reduction in seats. The solitary seat of Chandrapur was won by an ex-Shiv Sena MLA who joined the party just prior to the polls. The Chandrapur MP Balu Dhanorkar is a liquor baron and probably won due to the anger against prohibition in the district. Top Congress leadership at the centre and state hardly played any role in this win. Two former chief ministers Ashok Chavan and Sushil Kumar Shinde lost the elections, such was the pathetic condition of the Congress. Haryana was much worse with the Congress drawing a blank and even managing to lose Rohtak.
If the reports about the con played by data analytics department head Pravin Chakravarty on the top Congress leadership are true, then it is comical and tragic at the same time. Rahul Gandhi was living in a make-believe world where he was reasonably confident of being the Prime Minister, though the exit polls showed a completely different picture. So where did the Congress go wrong?
The Congress is still stuck in the mandal era politics of caste mobilisation and religious appeasement. Congress relies upon a loyal vote bank more than administrative performance to win elections. A more recent example is the Congress government in Madhya Pradesh which promised a farm loan waiver to be implemented immediately after coming to power. The promise has not been fulfilled yet. Power cuts are back in MP after a long time. Congress never focusses on basic governance. It seems it has not yet learnt from the success of Modi in delivering basic services and welfare schemes. Congress instead relies on the 15-20% Muslim votebank in various states as their mainstay. Then they look to complement it with the biggest Hindu caste in various states. It could be the Marathas in Maharashtra, Jats in Haryana or the Gujjars in Rajasthan. Congress still attracts a decent number of Dalit voters. But when it comes to looking after their voters, Congress has always fallen short. In fact, Congress seems to believe that keeping the voters poor helps in milking them multiple times. Modi govt has done more for Dalits (along with other Hindu castes and other religions) through schemes like Ujjwala, MUDRA and Saubhagya (electricity connection in any willing household) etc. Congress is yet to realise that we are in the post mandal era and voters of various social groups want delivery of services more than a token representation of ministers from their caste or region.
Preference to seniority and dynasty over talent
Congress has always shown a preference for seniority and dynast over talent. A recent example was the selection of Ashok Gehlot as CM of Rajasthan and Kamal Nath as CM of Madhya Pradesh, over Sachin Pilot and Jyotiraditya Scindia respectively. This is not to say that Pilot and Scindia are not dynasts, but they are much younger than Gehlot and Nath and could have attracted voters with new ideas. Instead, oldies like Gehlot and Kamal Nath who financed the assembly / Lok Sabha election campaign were selected as the chief ministers. Same familiar and worn out faces who have been around for decades and have failed in providing governance have been persisted with by the party. In contrast, Narendra Modi has selected new and younger leaders like Devendra Fadnavis, Yogi Adityanath, Manohar Lal Khattar, Sarbananda Sonowal, Jairam Thakur and Biplab Kumar Deb as chief ministers and central ministers like Piyush Goyal, Dharmendra Pradhan, Kiren Rijiju and Nirmala Sitharaman etc. The episode that best epitomizes the Congress fallacy is ex Assam CM favouring his son as his successor, over his long-term deputy Himanta Biswa Sarma. Later Rahul Gandhi insulted him by playing with his pet dog while Himanta was putting forth his views. An insulted Himanta vowed to decimate Congress in the North East and accomplished the task in a short duration. Ignoring talent does not pay to be it a business organisation or a political party.
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