Grand old party Congress now struggling to stand up; losses pan-India tag

NEW DELHI: Congress could be facing an existential crisis. Two years after its stunning reduction to 44 seats in the Lok Sabha, a rapidly shrinking national footprint and bleak prospects in upcoming assembly elections in states like Punjab, Uttarakhand and Uttar Pradesh pose a big question mark on its attempt to re-emerge as a pan India challenger to BJP .

Pressure could mount for Congress to be part of a “grand alliance" on the national scale as in Bihar, but this is not a particularly satisfying option as prime ministerial aspirants among regional parties are not likely to entertain the grand old party's leadership claim.

Indeed, soon after the results were out, Trinamool leader Mamata Banerjee suggested Congress could join a “federal" front of regional parties, though without the Left.

The emphasis was clear enough- Congress would be at par with others, and cannot expect the privileges of a larger party that might lead the opposition against PM Narendra Modi. As things stand apart from governments in Uttarakhand, Himachal Pradesh, Mizoram, Manipur and Meghalaya, Congress is present only in Karnataka.

The party's dilemma becomes more acute as the Assam results show that reject sam results show that rejecting an alliance with Badruddin Ajmal's Muslim-centric party was not the sole reason for its debacle. In fact, BJP made the most of an unprece dented Hindu consolidation that is a stinging indictment of Congress's perceived soft ness on illegal migrants and slack governance.

The central problem seems to be Congress's inability to rebuild a credible political mantra that can challenge BJP's aggressive marketing of economic reforms and its unabashed appeal to nationalism.

Its own vulnerabilities due to corruption exposes in defence deals and discomfort over allegations of manipulating investigations in 'Hindutva terror' cases have left it groping for a political plank taking on BJP over the JNU “anti-national" debate seems to have paid limited dividends as Congress faced the allegation of allying with a maoist Kashmiri separatist cause.

Normally, Congress could have hoped to gain from the perceived incumbency against the Akalis and BJP in Punjab. But it finds it pitch queered by a newbie like Aam Aadmi Party.