Patna: On 10 November, a day earlier than the second part of polling in Bihar, Rahul Gandhi mentioned he was “assured”.

Rahul was assured that after the Bihar election outcomes had been out, he would be capable of current knowledge proving that the BJP had “stolen” votes, in collusion with the Election Fee of India (ECI).

“I can’t converse for him, however state unit leaders weren’t very hopeful about our prospects. Nonetheless, we didn’t anticipate that we wouldn’t even cross the double-digit mark,” mentioned a senior chief of the Congress’s Bihar unit that plunged into an existential disaster Friday.

Already a marginal participant within the state’s politics, the Congress has slumped to a low level in Bihar, successful solely 6 of the 61 seats it contested, registering an astonishingly low strike charge of 9.8 p.c.

Until Friday, the Congress’s worst efficiency in Bihar was in 2010, when it gained 4 seats. The 2010 election cemented Nitish Kumar’s picture because the architect of the state’s turnaround story.

There have been voices inside the get together’s Bihar unit that attempted to impress upon the excessive command that Rahul Gandhi’s choice to make “vote chori” the centrepiece of the marketing campaign wanted a rethink, because the slogan was not resonating on the bottom.

One All India Congress Committee (AICC) office-bearer, who was in cost within the state, advised ThePrint that that they had even warned the management that the get together won’t repeat its 2020 efficiency—when it gained 19 of the 70 seats it contested—if there was no course correction.

“We feared that making ‘vote chori’ the lynchpin of the get together’s marketing campaign was a dangerous gambit as a result of there have been sufficient indications that we had been faring poorly, even when nobody anticipated a outcome this dangerous. Now, the BJP will fully discredit the ‘vote chori’ marketing campaign,” the office-bearer mentioned.

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Rahul’s Bihar marketing campaign

Regardless of the voices of warning, Rahul Gandhi pressed forward with a fortnight-long ‘Voter Adhikar Yatra’. That folks turned out in massive numbers wherever the yatra went had satisfied the Congress management, together with its Bihar in-charge Krishna Allavaru, that it had momentum on its facet.

Assured that the yatra had infused life into the get together, Allavaru sought to drive a tough discount with the RJD throughout seat-sharing talks. He had full authority to deal with the negotiations, as Rahul Gandhi launched into a visit to South America, after the yatra concluded on 1 September. He returned to marketing campaign, solely days earlier than the primary part of polling.

“From the get together’s viewpoint, he did what he was anticipated to, demanding high quality seats to contest from. In 2020, our strike charge was the bottom among the many events within the grand alliance as a result of we got seats that we couldn’t have gained,” mentioned one Congress chief, defending Allavaru.

Not everybody shared that sentiment, although. As an example, after the elections, former Union Minister Shakeel Ahmad, the get together’s two-time MP from Madhubani, give up the get together. He vented his ire over neither Allavaru nor Rajesh Ram consulting him, the Congress’s state unit president, on any election-related matter.

Whilst seat-sharing talks bumped into turbulence, the Congress resisted rising stress from the Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) to endorse Tejashwi Yadav because the Opposition’s chief ministerial candidate, arguing privately that doing so would consolidate non-Yadav OBC voters within the NDA’s favour.

“It was not essentially a nasty name, because the outcomes have proven. Over time, the higher castes abandoned the Congress, so it was clever for the get together to attempt increasing its tent. Efforts had been made with this in thoughts, together with a separate manifesto for the EBCs (Economically Backward Lessons). Nothing explains a outcome this dangerous. I don’t have a prepared reply,” a frontrunner near Allavaru mentioned Friday.

The EBC manifesto, launched by the Congress and the RJD on 24 September within the presence of Rahul Gandhi and Tejashwi Yadav, pledged a regulation just like the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act.

The Opposition additionally promised to extend the reservation for EBCs in Panchayats and City Native Our bodies from the present 20 p.c to 30 p.c. This was projected as a strategic transfer geared toward gaining floor in a constituency seen historically as loyal to Chief Minister Nitish Kumar’s Janata Dal (United).

In the long run, although, even Muslims, thought-about a secure Congress vote financial institution in Bihar, picked the All India Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen (AIMIM) over its candidates in as many as two seats, whereas in one other three, it trounced the RJD.

Meeting elections in 2026

The get together is now grappling with the query of what comes subsequent, with 2026 on the horizon. Assam, West Bengal, Tamil Nadu, Puducherry, and Kerala will go to the polls in 2026.

In Assam, the Congress is locked in a direct contest with the BJP. In Kerala, its principal rival is the Left. In Tamil Nadu, it’s a constituent of the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK)-led ruling alliance. In West Bengal, it has contested the previous couple of elections as an ally of the Left, solely to lose persistently.

Since Rahul Gandhi took over because the Lok Sabha Chief of the Opposition in 2024, the Congress has misplaced seven of the 9 elections held.

It misplaced Haryana and Maharashtra, states the place it was in a direct contest with the BJP, and carried out poorly in Andhra Pradesh, Odisha, Arunachal Pradesh, and Sikkim, the place it has lengthy been a marginal participant. The one locations the place the INDIA bloc has tasted some success are Jharkhand and Jammu and Kashmir, with the JMM and NC posting victories, aided marginally by the Congress.

(Edited by Madhurita Goswami)

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