New Delhi. Along with the elections for Maharashtra and Jharkhand Assembly, by-elections were also held for 46 Assembly and Lok Sabha seats in 15 states. In Maharashtra where Mahayuti has secured a huge majority. At the same time, Indi alliance has once again returned to power in Jharkhand. However, the results of Congress in these elections once again proved to be lagging. Congress is included in the alliance that is returning to power in Jharkhand, but as the second major ally of the alliance. The kind of defeat Congress has faced in Maharashtra is a matter of concern for the party.
In Maharashtra, Eknath Shinde, Devendra Fadnavis and Ajit Pawar together have given such a huge defeat to Congress, Shiv Sena (UBT) and NCP (Sharad), which these three parties would never have dreamed of. The people of the state have pushed back the alliance of Chanakya Sharad Pawar, Uddhav Thackeray and Nana Patole with the power of their votes. After winning 30 out of 48 seats in Maharashtra in the Lok Sabha elections, the Congress alliance failed to understand the ground political reality here.
After the results of this election, Leader of Opposition in Lok Sabha and Congress MP Rahul Gandhi reached the RSS headquarters in Nagpur to distribute the Constitution, in which the inside pages turned out to be blank. BJP called it Lal Kitab. Rahul Gandhi felt that through the issues like Constitution, OBC reservation and caste enumeration which were raised in the Lok Sabha elections, victory in the assembly was certain and the same formula would work. Then what, elections were going on here and Congress was discussing the future CM during the elections.
Now that the election results have come out, it is clear that in the history of Maharashtra, such plight of Congress had not happened even in the elections held after the Emergency. Even then Indira Gandhi’s party had got 69 seats. Today Congress seems to be struggling on 16 seats here. Even in the Maharashtra assembly elections, Rahul Gandhi was saying that the Constitution was in danger. They were promising to conduct caste census and were advocating increasing the limit of OBC reservation. He was running the Lok Sabha formula in the Maharashtra Assembly elections. Congress itself had forgotten that assembly elections are being held in Maharashtra and this election can be won on the basis of local issues and not on national issues.
In Maharashtra, BJP managed to win 132 seats, which is the party’s best performance so far. In 2014, BJP won 122 seats in the Maharashtra Assembly elections. After which this is its best performance because BJP learned a lesson from the shortcomings in the Lok Sabha elections. BJP focused on grassroots issues here. Narendra Modi government removed the ban on onion export. Major decisions were taken regarding soybean farmers. Eknath Shinde started the Chief Minister Majhi Ladki Bahin Yojana, which proved to be a game changer.
On the request of Devendra Fadnavis for better performance of BJP in Sangh’s stronghold Vidarbha, Sangh openly batted for BJP. The remaining gap in this election was filled by PM Modi’s ‘If we are one, we are safe’ slogan and Yogi Adityanath’s ‘Batenge to Katenge’ slogan. That means Congress has not been able to repeat its previous performance in both the election states. Whereas in both the states, Congress was fighting the elections completely under the direction of Rahul Gandhi. Rahul Gandhi was also deciding the election issues of Congress.
In Jharkhand, Congress had contested the last elections on 31 seats. It had won 16 seats. Whereas, in this assembly elections, Congress has contested on 30 seats, but currently it is leading on 16 seats. Meaning there has been no change in the strike rate of Congress. On the other hand, Congress is not able to compete with any of the three parties involved in the grand alliance in Maharashtra. This time in Maharashtra, Congress has fielded its candidates on 101 seats and has won on 16. Whereas, Congress had contested the last election on 147 seats and won 44 seats. Rahul Gandhi had sweated a lot in Maharashtra. In such a situation, it is time for the party to review why the results were not relatively in their favor.
Rahul Gandhi had held election rallies in Nandurbar, Dhamangaon Railway, Nagpur East, Gondia, Chimur, Nanded North and Bandra East seats in Maharashtra, seeing the crowd in which Congress’s confidence was at its peak. Out of the seven assembly seats where Rahul Gandhi held election rallies in Maharashtra, Maha Vikas Aghadi candidates are leading in only one, which means that the crowd gathered at Rahul Gandhi’s public meeting could not be converted into votes.
Rahul Gandhi has completed a journey of 20 years in politics. Rahul entered active politics in 2004 and after that Congress remained in power till 2014. However, during that time Sonia Gandhi was leading the Congress. After this, Congress’s dependence on Rahul Gandhi increased and its performance continued to decline. Barring the elections in one or two states, Congress could not show any success under the leadership of Rahul. The results of Maharashtra elections proved that Rahul Gandhi is still not a very promising leader for Congress.
Tags: Congress, Jharkhand Elections, Maharashtra Elections, Rahul Gandhi
FIRST PUBLISHED: November 24, 2024, 01:28 IST
