Congress leader Rahul Gandhi is credited with the smooth transition of power in Karnataka, allying with the rising regional party, Tamil Nadu’s ruling Tamil Nadu Vetri Kazhagam, and forming the government under new leadership in Kerala. This comes after Congress won the 2023 Telangana Assembly elections.
After its successes in southern India, the Congress faces its toughest challenge in Uttar Pradesh, where the party’s performance in the 2024 national elections, in alliance with the Samajwadi Party (SP), has raised hopes of a recovery from an eventual decline.
The Congress-SP alliance won 43 of the 80 Lok Sabha seats in Uttar Pradesh and secured 43.52% of the votes. The Congress won six of the 17 seats it contested and secured 9.46% of the votes. The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) fell from 62 seats in 2019 to 33, taking its total number of seats below the majority mark in Parliament for the first time since 2014.
Maintaining momentum in Uttar Pradesh is easier said than done for the Congress party. Talking about reviving the party requires a reality check, as the same old story has remained, one election after another, in the past three decades.
Seat-sharing talks between Rahul Gandhi and BSP chief Akhilesh Yadav are scheduled to take place next week amid confusion following the failed attempt by Congress leaders Rajendra Pal Gautam and Tanuj Punia to meet Bahujan Samajwadi Party chief Mayawati last month. The attempt sparked speculation about Congress’s possible alliance with the BSP.
Gautam and Punia appear to have been reprimanded, but the Congress is yet to clarify its stand. The party appears to be divided on the issue of alliance. The faction prefers an alliance with the BSP over the SP. The anti-BSP faction opposes any alliance, citing how it would rob Congress of votes, and questions why it is necessary to revive an untrustworthy party.
Congress leader Akhilesh Pratap Singh emphasized that the party’s focus is on organizational restructuring and cadre building. This has finally shown its results ahead of the 2027 Uttar Pradesh Assembly elections, he said.
Elections are scheduled to be held in seven states next year. Of these, the Congress has been out of power in Uttar Pradesh since 1989.
The Congress had a vote share of 27.90% and 94 out of 425 seats in the undivided Uttar Pradesh Assembly in 1991. This fell to 2.33% vote share and 2 out of 399 seats in 2022. In 1996, it won 33 seats in alliance with the BSP.
The Congress won 21 of the 80 Lok Sabha seats in 2009 and 10 in 1999. Its seat winnings have remained in the single digits in all other elections since 1991, and reached its nadir (one seat) in 2019.
Congress is demanding more than 100 seats in the 2027 elections and threatens to go it alone if it is deprived of a respectable number. Yadav stressed that the SP’s alliance with Congress will continue, but the ability to win will determine the number of seats each party will compete for. The Congress contested 114 seats in the 2017 Assembly elections.
Congress leaders claim the alliance offers benefits to the SP despite its decline by helping to unite Muslim voters and attract Dalits, who are reluctant to support a party whose core voters are Yadavs. They say the alliance helps mitigate the BJP’s aggressive propaganda of “lawlessness” against the SP. The Congress can also attract upper caste support, especially from Brahmins, while the SP is focusing on the PDA formula of strengthening backward castes, Dalits and Muslim voters.
The SP has highlighted the strike rate and Congress’s lack of winnable cadres and candidates. Congress leaders insist that Rahul Gandhi and Yadav have developed better communication since 2017. As pillars of the inclusive Indian national development alliance, Rahul Gandhi and Yadav have taken on the BJP head-on. Moreover, together they form a formidable bloc in Parliament, leading the second and third largest party after the BJP.
Both the Congress and the SP are aware that splitting the anti-BJP votes will give an easy third term to the BJP if they contest separately.
Of the five states that will go to polls in early 2027, the Congress has better prospects in Uttarakhand and Punjab. The Congress won the 2002 and 2012 elections in Uttarakhand after creating the state in 2000. The Congress hopes to capitalize on anti-incumbency in the state.
In Punjab, the Congress won the 1992, 2002 and 2017 elections before the Aam Aadmi Party came to power in 2022. The Aam Aadmi Party faces anti-incumbency, and the Shiromani Akali Dal is in disarray.
But the resource-rich Bharatiya Janata Party is outpacing opposition parties, especially in Uttar Pradesh, where Prime Minister Yogi Adityanath is touring the state as the party seeks to maintain momentum, especially after leading the government in Bihar for the first time and storming to power in West Bengal.
