Can Cong bounce back before 2024?

‘Unity, discipline and determination.’ Those were the key words which Congress President Mallikarjun Kharge spelt out as he delivered his concluding remarks at the end of the 85th plenary of the Congress party in Raipur, Chhattisgarh. He also heralded a new beginning for the Congress as it goes about fighting the Assembly polls lined up for later this year and the parliament elections due in 2024.

This party plenary was keenly watched by political observers as it was overseen by a non-Gandhi party president and was held in the backdrop of several prominent leaders including Gulam Nabi Azad and Kapil Sibal bidding adieu to the Congress. It also came amid vociferous calls for reforming the party organisation and its ways of functioning after the series of electoral defeats in recent years including the parliament polls in 2014 and 2019.

Many in the Congress know that it’s now or never for the party to make a spirited return as the main opposition force amid calls from leaders like Nitish Kumar to the Congress to take the lead in forging unity against the BJP-led NDA. There was also a demand made by some senior leaders to make the allpowerful Congress Working Committee (CWC) more inclusive by holding elections to select its members.

That proposal was however rejected with the party steering committee deciding to empower Kharge himself to nominate members to the CWC. That apart, what will be eagerly watched is the manner in which the Grand Old Party of India goes about fighting the coming Assembly polls, two of which - in Meghalaya and Nagaland-are due on Monday while Karnataka will be voting in a new government in a couple of months from now.

States like Mizoram, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, Telangana and Chhattisgarh are likely to see polls by December this year and if the Congress is really determined to make an impact in the next Lok Sabha elections, it will have to put up a good show in these poll-bound states in the run-up to the all-important 2024 elections. Whether that will really happen is left to the realm of speculation; in Karnataka, the party has a fighting chance but is bogged down by a tussle over the CM’s chair which could impact its prospects in several constituencies.

In Rajasthan where the Congress is in power, the scenario is not too different with Gehlot-Pilot spats making headlines almost daily. While Chhattisgarh is one state where CM Bhupesh Baghel of the Congress has stolen an edge over others with his performance in government, Madhya Pradesh shows no signs of a strong Congress revival yet. In tiny Mizoram where regional parties hold sway, it will need a more than ordinary effort by the Congress to oust the Mizo National Front.

No different is the scenario in Telangana where the BJP has occupied the opposition space by doggedly taking on CM K Chandrasekhar Rao. Congress insiders confide that the party will have to build up on the rapport created by the Bharat Jodo Yatra to make sure it is strong enough to occupy the opposition space. And the only way the Congress and other parties keen on displacing the BJP from power at the Centre, can achieve their objective is by forming a national coalition with a common agenda.

Such an effort will require deliberations on a massive scale which will have to start now so that a national bulwark is built against the ruling party. In fact the party has made a good beginning at its plenary by calling on leaders in poll-bound states to work with unity to ensure a victory that will set the tone for the 2024 polls, and by also showing its willingness to forge an “alliance of like-minded” parties