New Delhi (TIP)- The Congress has ended up on the losing side in nine of the 10 assembly elections held over the past two years — the only exception being Tamil Nadu where it was a junior partner of the DMK-led alliance that won.

It has lost at least five key young leaders in the recent past and has been reduced to ruling just two states on its own. Its inability to win elections has stoked defiance and dissent within the party hierarchy. The latest drubbing in the state elections comes just months before the Congress is set to elect a new president.

The party now faces two imminent dangers, said four leaders. “Its leadership space in the opposition quarters will come under stiff challenge from a parallel formation led by the TMC (Trinamool Congress) or the AAP (Aam Aadmi Party) and within the party, the G23 ( the leaders who wrote a letter to Sonia Gandhi in 2019 seeking an overhaul), will grow stronger,” said one, asking not to be named.

While the Congress is still grappling with how to take on the Narendra Modi-led Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), it has ceded space to AAP in states such as Punjab. Former president Rahul Gandhi said the Congress “humbly accepts the people’s verdict” and added that it “will learn from this and keep working for the interests of the people of India”. The party also announced that a meeting of its working committee will be called soon to analyse the results.

This is not the first time the Congress failed to win a state in a series of assembly polls. Last year it lost in four of the five states where elections were held, but joined the ruling dispensation in Tamil Nadu as an ally of the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK).

Congress’s chief spokesperson Randeep Surjewala indicated foul play within party ranks. “All party leaders must seriously introspect and see if fight over positions, difference of opinion was so strong that it is cutting the tree (Congress) itself.”

He also blamed the anti-incumbency of four and a half years (Amarinder Singh’s tenure in Punjab) and said: “We offered the people of Punjab an alternative in the form of Charanjit Singh Channi, but could not overcome the four-and-a-half-year anti-incumbency sentiment.”

                Source: HT