Cong needs to have upper hand in last three rounds

NEW DELHI: For Congress, the biggest challenge will be to bag the maximum number of seats in the remaining three phases.

Not only is the party confronted with the spectre of a significant reduction in its seats from Andhra Pradesh, the state which had sent the largest contingent to the Lok Sabha in 2004, it is being projected as being unable to notch up any meaningful gains in Maharashtra, Orissa, Punjab and Rajasthan to make up for the losses in Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu and a few smaller states, such as Jharkhand, Assam and Gujarat.

The big worry for Congress was that, with the exception of the Left-ruled states of West Bengal and Kerala, parties occupying the non-Congress space in the remaining states were shown as faring better than Congress and other UPA partners.

Moreover, the haul of the non-Congress parties in these states was expected to be much better than that of the principal ruling party at the Centre, or that of its alliance partners. In fact, there was not a single state where the Congress was showing as coming up with a more lethal strike-rate.

In the 2004 general election, the Congress��� kitty was made possible because of significant contributions from Andhra Pradesh (29), Maharashtra (13), Gujarat (12), Tamil Nadu (10), Assam, Haryana and Uttar Pradesh (nine each).

The trends emerging from Andhra indicate a downslide for Congress. The party faces a washout in the Telangana region, where it has ceded considerable ground to the TDP-TRS-Left grand alliance. Even in the coastal belt, the Praja Rajyam Party and the TDP are said to have fared better.

In neighbouring Tamil Nadu, too, the alliance cobbled together by AIADMK chief J Jayalalithaa has emerged as a formidable force. The Sri Lankan crisis is said made things more difficult for the DMK-Congress combine.

The Congress��� poll managers were pinning their hopes on a much improved showing in Kerala, Maharashtra and Orissa. In Kerala, the Left Front was said to be down, but was certainly not out. CPM and its allies were said to be digging their heels in their bastion of northern Kerala.

Despite firming up a pre-poll alliance with NCP in Maharashtra, trends emerging from the first and second phases of polling in the state, covering 38 of the 48 seats, showed that the BJP-Shiv Sena combine was expected to lose a couple of seats in Vidarbha, but was making up for this loss by putting up a spirited show in Marathwada and Mumbai.