Assembly polls 2013: Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh turning into no-go zones for Congress

NEW DELHI: Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh are turning into another Tamil Nadu for Congress, a category that signifies a barren patch where Congress is the third party in popularity.

Congress finished second to Shivraj Singh Chouhan's BJP in Madhya Pradesh but it is such a distant runner-up that it could easily have had another player in between. A hat-trick of decimation suggests that it may be a long haul for the party to recover ground in central India. Though Chhattisgarh was close, it was an election to win because of the anti-incumbency.

What makes the defeat a serious concern for Congress is that it earlier lost under a satrap like Digvijaya Singh and this time with a young Jyotiraditya Scindia as the spearhead. Even the feedback with the party suggested that Congress would run the BJP close, if not notch a victory.

The saffron Sunday in Bhopal and Raipur stretched the barren Congress patch across the country, putting a vast swathe of central, east and north zone out of its reach. Congress is irrelevant in Uttar Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, West Bengal, Odisha, Jharkhand, Gujarat and Jammu and Kashmir.

The only saving grace for the party in MP is that while being out of favour with voters in local polls, the party managed to do well in the 2009 parliamentary elections, like in Gujarat. Ironically, Congress is a ruling party in J&K and Jharkhand, albeit as junior partners in alliance with regional outfits.

For Congress, the nemesis in central India is the faction-ridden local units in which no satrap is willing to back the other. While it was pipped to the post by BJP in Chhattisgarh, a big setback to its campaign was the presence of Ajit Jogi. The former CM staked claim to be the party face since his alternative Nand Kumar Patel was killed in the Naxal attack in May. This forced Congress to back away from projecting any leader as its chief ministerial candidate.

Many believe yet another spell in the opposition in the two states will put serious strain on the local unit, making it vulnerable to disintegration.