NEW DELHI: After shock back-to-back poll defeats following a defiant Lok Sabha show, Congress goes into Delhi elections with the ambitious hope of reverting its downbeat mood via a state where it is practically finished as an electoral force.
The odds on Congress’ performance in Delhi and the stakes involved make the coming capital contest an interesting show just when it was likely to be a side drama in Congress’s larger battle to reorient itself nationally post-2024. After all, the party failed to open its account in the Delhi assembly in 2015 and 2020, a decimation that started with it being supplanted by the newbie AAP of Arvind Kejriwal in 2013 as Congress was relegated to eight seats.
Delhi has held a political appeal disproportionate to its size and partial statehood, as it was used by Congress in 2003 to project its resilience in the face of BJP’s sweep of polls in Chhattisgarh, Rajasthan and MP. The 2015 results, that defied the national mood of Narendra Modi’s sweep to office, was deployed by Kejriwal to proclaim AAP as the “new Congress”. The mood held, even if the promise did not.
Going by past narrative, Congress is in an unenviable position. It is looking at its negligible muscle in Delhi to beef up the national mood, dampened by its shock defeats in Haryana and Maharashtra just after it had announced “revival” following LS 2024.
From the national perspective, Congress would hope for a marginal bounce back and enough AAP slide that can lead to an alliance govt of estranged INDIA partners. It would give Congress just enough wiggle room to tease BJP and to portray itself as a party that matters pan-India. Any other result would hurt the already demoralised party.
