Swarn Kishore Singh
Prime Minister Narendra Modi, in his speech from the ramparts of the Red Fort on the 77th Independence Day, stressed on fighting corruption, nepotism and appeasement, specifically singling out the Congress Party using the phrase “rule of the family, by the family and for the family”. The Congress Party ruled the country with this very unspoken practice until Modi’s wild card entry in 2014. The Congress Party and the Nehru-Gandhi family are currently collapsing as the Delhi ecosystem of the Lutyen family has surrounded them with courtiers and acolytes, blinding them to reality. The family continues to coast with only a final token replacement of the faces of its courtiers. India rejected the family in 2014, and even the recent election results have not acknowledged the family and its futile adventurism.
For the 2024 general elections, 968 million voters were registered, of which approximately 642 million cast their votes. Indians are making their voice heard through their votes, and thankfully, this time the message has not been tainted by vague and fanciful accusations of tampering with electronic voting machines. In fact, this election is one of the fairest in recent history.
The Bharatiya Janata Party contested 441 seats and won 240, while the Indian National Congress could only contest 328 seats against its overtly aggressive allies, resulting in a failure to reach triple digits in its final vote tally. The task of the 2024 general elections is not all smooth sailing for the BJP, but it is also not very encouraging for the Indian National Congress. In fact, the verdict is very disappointing for the Indian National Congress, considering its two consecutive terms of anti-incumbency against the BJP. The manner in which the Indian National Congress celebrates the election verdict as the emergence of Rahul Gandhi as a leader is monumentally absurd. The Indian National Congress is either delusional or unwilling to properly analyze the results to avoid triggering proper introspection. If the basis for celebration is an arithmetic improvement from the previous 52 seats, may God save the political wisdom and foresight of the Indian National Congress.
Let’s do the math. The most striking thing about the Lok Sabha election results is that the Congress Party managed to win just 25 of the 225 Hindi-speaking seats. Add Gujarat and it’s 26 out of 251. And if this defines Rahul Gandhi’s emergence as a leader and his acceptance across India, then the Congress Party is unaware of the truth and ignoring reality. The Congress Party had no seats in Andhra Pradesh, Delhi, Himachal Pradesh, Jammu and Kashmir, Madhya Pradesh and Uttarakhand, and only one seat each in key states like Gujarat, Chhattisgarh, Odisha and West Bengal. In the Northeast, the Congress Party won just five seats, and even the southern states did not embrace Rahul Gandhi, even though this region was the epicenter of his ambitious Indian Pure Land march.
The BJP won 36.6% of the total votes in this election, a mere 0.8% decrease from its 37.4% in the 2019 Lok Sabha elections. The Congress Party only managed to increase by 1.7% from 19.5% to 21.2%, which is hardly impressive. Regional parties, on the other hand, were more effective, and the Congress Party’s slight increase in vote share can be attributed to votes in its favour thanks to its alliance partners.
Blaming the OBCs for their disproportionate share in the bureaucracy, terrorizing people belonging to the Scheduled Castes with the abolition of their reservations, and inciting the Indian masses with the rhetoric of abolishing our Constitution alone, the Indian National Congress used all its weapons to push the BJP into a corner. Nevertheless, the Indian National Congress’ upward mobility plateaued in 1999.
It is my opinion that the BJP has taken token extreme steps in this election but without a fundamental ideological realignment and comprehensive organisational reforms, it cannot go any further. The only way the BJP beat the Indian Rajya Sabha in this election is the way they controlled the narrative. The BJP did not just fix the narrative, they deployed it aggressively and ensured that it reached their core voters. This was largely based on stealth whereas the BJP’s alliance partners in India and India ensured that their narrative, wrapped in a political message, reached their core voters.
The people of India have a voice and when the people speak up, political parties and politicians should listen. A non-partisan analysis of the results of the 2024 Lok Sabha elections in India would suggest that the NDA has been shocked and warned by the people of India to change its ways and ensure that its core ideology is not compromised and the image of the party is protected from being tarnished by the reckless entry of tainted traitors. The Indian National Congress and other alliance partners of the INDI alliance have been given enough seats to function as a strong opposition to run democracy better and to aggressively criticise the government when necessary. This verdict should not be misconstrued by the Indian National Congress and other allies of the INDI alliance to stifle lofty ideas of being accepted as a credible alternative to the BJP-led NDA government. The verdict has ostensibly given the Congress more strength and energy to oppose the government. It has also given the Congress an opportunity to reorganise itself organisationally and ideologically to reflect the aspirations of the Indian people.
The Congress is trying to do something to remove the BJP from power, but ostensibly the BJP is not going to do anything either. If the BJP comes to power for the third time in a row, which is a first in India since the Nehru regime, we can safely assume that the BJP is definitely doing something right and the Congress is not living up to expectations. The BJP has been anti-incumbency for two consecutive terms, and yet the Congress is celebrating its 99th inauguration. It is celebrating mediocrity!
The Congress should avoid pandering to any particular community and rather come up with a plan to attract people across the country and communities towards itself. Any political party is built on the hard work of its ground workers but ground workers cannot survive in the opposition for 15 years. Hence, the swearing-in ceremony of PM Modi and his cabinet ministers has sealed the Congress’ demise in the 2029 elections. The Congress needs to do something groundbreaking to reverse this.
Once the fake celebrations at the Congress office are over, they should drop this farce and find a knowledgeable data analyst to give them this clever analysis. Reminiscences are good for lifting the spirits, but having only a smug, talkative prostitute running India’s main opposition party is far too dangerous for their future. The Congress should stop the shenanigans, introduce Swachhta Abhiyan into their organisational set-up and seriously work on ideological realignment, or the worst awaits.
(The author is a political activist and commentator.)
