Congress: The year 2024 was ‘sometimes happy and sometimes sad’ for Congress and now the new year can be a challenge for it as well as new hopes. The challenge will be to perform well in the assembly elections of Delhi and Bihar and strengthen its stature in the opposition, then as per the announcement of the working committee in Belagavi, by strengthening the organization and running a nationwide campaign, it can open new doors of possibilities for itself in the future. .
The year 2024 was going to raise hopes of better prospects for it, but at the end of the year, the assembly elections of Maharashtra, Haryana and Jammu and Kashmir again put brakes on the party’s hopes.
Recently, in an off-the-record conversation with journalists, a senior party leader, while mentioning 2024, said, “It was a year of sometimes happiness and sometimes sadness for us.”
The first major challenge before the Congress in the year 2025 is the Delhi Assembly elections where it could not even open its account in the last two elections.
Congress fielded candidates on 47 seats in Delhi
It has so far declared a total of 47 candidates for the Delhi Assembly elections and through this list it has tried to indicate that it will contest the elections seriously and try to become a third pole apart from the BJP and the Aam Aadmi Party. Congress has fielded Sandeep Dikshit, son of former Delhi Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit and former MP, against AAP convenor Arvind Kejriwal from New Delhi seat.
As a result of Congress’s aggression, Aam Aadmi Party alleged that the country’s main opposition party is helping BJP in Delhi. Expressing displeasure over a statement by former Union Minister Ajay Maken, he had also advocated the withdrawal of Congress from the ‘India’ alliance.
Delhi-Bihar elections will decide the stature of Congress in India alliance.
If Congress is successful in winning some seats in Delhi, it will get a new lease of life in the national capital, but if it fails like in the previous elections, its position not only in Delhi but also in the ‘India’ alliance will be further affected. From the electoral point of view, the second big challenge for Congress this year is the Bihar Assembly elections which are likely to be held in October-November. In Bihar, Congress is playing the role of younger brother of Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) in the ‘India’ alliance, but if the opposition alliance has to gain power there, then the electoral performance of Congress will matter a lot. In the 2020 elections, the opposition alliance fell short of majority and the weak performance of the Congress was held responsible for that. In that election, Congress had contested 70 seats, but could win only 19.
The first challenge for Congress will be to get respectable seats to contest elections in alliance in Bihar and then the second big challenge will be to perform better than last time. In this way, the results of Bihar will also decide whether the stature of Congress in the opposition faction will increase or decrease.
Congress engaged in strengthening organization in Karnataka
Congress announced an ‘organization creation’ program in Belagavi, Karnataka a few days ago. She said that she will strengthen the organization at every level and along with giving responsibility to new people, accountability will be fixed. In the working committee meeting, Congress resolved to immediately start ‘organization creation’ and said that Babasaheb Bhimrao Ambedkar’s She will launch a nationwide campaign to take the issue of “insult” and attack on the Constitution to every village.
He said that as part of his campaign which will last for 13 months, along with conducting padyatras, seminars and public meetings will be organized at the block, district and state levels.
Congress got 99 seats in Lok Sabha
The country’s oldest party won 99 out of total 543 seats in the Lok Sabha elections last year and along with its alliance partners, it was successful in stopping the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) from getting away from the majority. Earlier, in the 2014 and 2019 Lok Sabha elections, Congress had secured 44 and 52 seats respectively and could not even get the post of Leader of Opposition in the lower house of Parliament. After this Lok Sabha election, former Congress President Rahul Gandhi became the Leader of Opposition.
After a comparatively good performance in the Lok Sabha elections, Congress strategists were hopeful that the party’s position would be further strengthened in the assembly elections. But the performance of Congress, which made the Constitution a big issue in the Lok Sabha elections, was disappointing in the assembly elections.
A major success for the Congress in this parliamentary election was that it created such a discourse of ‘changing the Constitution’ to counter the BJP’s slogan of ‘this time, cross 400’ that a large section of the Scheduled Castes and Tribes supported it. Got support.
Congress’s hopes dealt a blow in Haryana and Maharashtra
Congress had not yet recovered from the defeat in Haryana when it and its alliance ‘Maha Vikas Aghadi’ suffered a major setback in Maharashtra. This alliance could secure only about 50 seats in the 288-member assembly, while the BJP-led ‘Mahayuti’ won more than 230 seats. Congress’s performance in the Jammu and Kashmir Assembly elections was also disappointing, it could not even reach double figures.
The result of Jharkhand assembly elections was encouraging for it, where it bypassed all the speculations and secured 16 seats and emerged as a strong component of the ‘India’ alliance. This alliance was successful in retaining its power by securing 56 seats in the 81-member assembly of the state. Last year, the election innings of Congress General Secretary Priyanka Gandhi Vadra also started. She reached the Lok Sabha for the first time by winning the by-election in Kerala Wayanad.
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