EVEN as the MahaYuti celebrates its unprecedented victory in the Maharashtra Assembly elections against a disjointed Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA), devastation of the result is yet to ring into the corridors of the Congress party. Apart from its pathetic excuse of blaming the election process and the electronic voting machines, there is no concrete response from the Grand Old Party despite the humiliation in its so-called bastions. The Congress is back to square one in Maharashtra and continues to wander into the wrong lane with no safety gear. After the 2024 Lok Sabha elections, the Congress had emerged as a key player in Maharashtra with odds heavily stacked against the Bharatiya Janata Party and its allies. It was the leading player in the MVA seat-sharing formula and the State was set for another direct fight between the two traditional rivals. However, the decimation of the MVA has killed all hopes of a revival of Congress as it lost all gains of the general elections. The worst-ever performance in Maharashtra has left the party on the brink of an implosion with no capable leader to take control.

 

The Congress was a victim of its own arrogance and overconfidence in Maharashtra as it tried to play the big brother in the MVA but failed to quell rebellion in its own ranks. With no clear strategy to woo the electorate and factionalism reaching alarming proportions, the party went back to the same old ‘save the Constitution’ narrative but failed miserably. All through the period between the Lok Sabha elections and Assembly polls, the Congress remained in denial of the swift change in the MahaYuti’s strategy. There was no planning or strategy to take on the BJP and the silent might of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS). Grappled with infighting, the Congress leadership resorted to the bravado of keeping the allies NCP (Sharad Pawar) and Shiv Sena (UBT) waiting till the last minute before hammering out a seat-sharing equation and paid heavily with a devastating defeat. The Congress contested 108 seats and returned with a paltry 16 seats registering a poor strike rate of 15.8.

 

Despite the rallies by senior leaders Mr. Rahul Gandhi, Ms. Priyanka Gandhi and party chief Mr. Mallikarjun Kharge the Congress campaign never took off. The party think-tank decided to stick with the Constitution narrative and kept flashing the ‘Red Book’ during speeches. It was an idea whose shelf-life was over immediately after the Lok Sabha elections yet the Congress refused to acknowledge the ground reality. With such an unresponsive senior leadership, the party candidates were left to fend for themselves and came up a cropper against the BJP’s election machinery. What the Congress leadership in New Delhi is inexplicably ignoring is the bickering and professional rivalry among netas in Maharashtra. It is a disarray which the Gandhis can ignore at their own peril.