No Highs, Only Lows For Congress In 2025 As Party Suffers Poll Routs, Infighting

Recent Delhi: The beneficial properties of the 2024 Lok Sabha election now seem like a miles off dream for Congress after they failed to capitalise on Maharashtra and Haryana Assembly elections within the latter share of that yr, and witnessed a whole give draw in Delhi and Bihar Assembly elections in 2025.

The indomitable Bharatiya Janata Occasion outmanoeuvred Congress in all aspects, serving them humiliating defeats in Delhi and Bihar, prompting consultants to call out the birthday celebration’s management to rob up the responsibility and lift “serious people” and increase “serious points.”

Repeated electoral disappointments also exposed the strategic and ideological crisis and gave rise to voices of dissent within the birthday celebration.

Yogesh Kamdar, Member of the Advisory Board of Administration and weak Course Head (Journalism and Mass Conversation) at Xavier Institute of Conversation, expressed field, “It is a tragic scenario. It is far the oldest birthday celebration with the immense goodwill of the folk. It has done fabulously in greater than 100 years of its existence. And with out word it is a non-entity as far as folk’s conception is anxious, which is their cling fault.”

Devendra Pai, Assistant Professor of Political Science at Delhi University, reasoned that the birthday celebration’s failures stem from its inability to adapt, an absence of “charismatic” management, and organisational weakness.

Congress entered the Delhi Assembly elections on the support of defeat within the Haryana and Maharashtra elections. Alternatively, there used to be quiet some glimmer of hope from the 2024 Lok Sabha election outcomes, whereby the birthday celebration won ninety nine seats, nearly about doubling its seats when put next with 52 in 2019, formally changing into the opposition birthday celebration after a decade of failure. The Occasion had also performed coalition victories in Jammu and Kashmir and Jharkhand.

Nobody had anticipated Congress to procure the Delhi elections, because the competition used to be between the ruling Aam Aadmi Occasion and the opposition BJP. Mild, folk anticipated an improved performance with the birthday celebration fielding weak Delhi CM Sheila Dikshit’s son, Sandeep Dikshit.

Alternatively, it used to be one other catastrophe: the birthday celebration done to take into accounta good hattrick of failing to open its fable, but made marginal beneficial properties of two per cent within the vote fragment when put next with 2020.

BJP secured a delighted majority, winning Forty eight seats to AAP’s 22 within the 70-member assembly, all yet again proving that the 2024 Lok Sabha election used to be correct a blip, a consequence of “complacency in mid-level leadership” as described by Devendra Pai.

“It (2024 Lok Sabha Election) was not a victory of Congress but a defeat of the BJP. There was some complacency in mid-level leadership. People felt that their voices were not being heard at the top level. They suffered in the election. However, they immediately did a course correction, starting from Haryana, Maharashtra, Delhi, and then Bihar,” Devendra Pai, Assistant Professor at Delhi University, said.

Moreover, Yogesh Kamdar highlighted a routine sample of anti-incumbency voters turning to any birthday celebration “but Congress,” emphasising the severe lack of management and strategic draw to the elections.

“This is precisely what is happening all over. People may be unhappy with the ruling party, but the alternative that they choose is not Congress. They may choose the BJP or somebody else, like in Punjab, it goes to somebody else but Congress. Now the ‘but Congress’ part is a real serious threat to their existence,” he said.

“There lies the trouble. The perception in the mind of the ordinary voter about the party is that it’s a bunch of useless people. And I do not want to waste my vote on that. So, that is what has resulted in their terrible performance,” he added.

Devendra Pai added that Congress did no longer stumble on as a “viable alternative” in Delhi, unable to teach its functionality or willingness to give one more governance.

Bihar used to be the closing checking out floor for Lok Sabha LoP Rahul Gandhi’s politics of ‘Jitni abadi utna haq’. The explain identified for its-cased based mostly politics, the put every analyst comes up with their cling caste equation and alignments, had every element to push the birthday celebration’s say to elongate reservations and swing within the voters, however the BJP, fancy continually, used to be two steps outdated to them.

“Congress went for it (demand of caste census) months ahead (of the Bihar election), which gave the BJP time to respond. They responded to it on the policy level and on the ground. They agreed to do the caste census, and the issue was over.” Devendra Pai said.

Following the announcement of the Caste Census, for which Rahul Gandhi patted his support, Congress tried to utilise the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls in Bihar with “vote theft” allegations. The Lok Sabha Leader of Opposition launched a nationwide campaign in opposition to the Election Rate of India, conserving more than one press conferences, claiming to “expose the rigging” of the Maharashtra and Haryana Assembly elections.

Rahul Gandhi also alleged that the SIR in Bihar used to be the BJP’s one other tactic to delete the votes of the marginalised neighborhood, in an strive to consolidate his voter deplorable.

Alternatively, Yogesh Kamdar termed it as a “flippant issue” with Congress having nothing to give a boost to their claims.

“They are taking up flippant issues, blowing them up, making them into what you call as if it’s a national calamity, without any evidence. Nothing to support their claim, nothing to support their allegations. Only press conferences and statements,” he said.

“It is like a crying wolf. Every day you will say that a wolf has come, and when the wolf really comes, no one will stand up. This is what has happened,” he added.

In the intervening time, Devendra Pai believed that Rahul Gandhi lacked the “gravitas” to form the “vote theft” allegations stick.

“The leadership of Rahul Gandhi and the lack of it is making this look like an artificial construct. If Modi ji had been in opposition and he spoke on the same issue, then people might have believed him more. Here, people don’t trust him. He is not a serious politician,” he said.

Devendra Pai also added that every particular person of the theorem of “vote theft” in regards to SIR does no longer allure to the folk, as they attain desire “illegal immigrants” to be eradicated who’re “attempting to commerce the demography.”

The Delhi University Professor extra cited that the identical concerns are also being raised within the US.

The discontinue consequence of the Congress’s “vote theft” driven campaign in Bihar used to be clearly visible because the birthday celebration registered a strike rate of no longer up to 10 per cent, winning six seats out of the greater than 60 seats it contested for Mahagathbandhan, correct any other seat than Asaduddin Owaisi’s AIMIM.

On the so a lot of hand, the NDA alliance, largely comprising BJP and Chief Minister Nitish Kumar’s JD (U), on the support of the Mukhaymantri Mahila Rojgar Yojana, a sturdy organisational constructing, and grassroot connections, secured a two-thirds majority. The NDA won 202 of the 243 assembly seats. The Mahagathbandhan secured 35 seats, with the RJD main with 25. 

In 2025, Congress’s ideological and organisational shortcomings had been also put on teach, as its senior leaders raised differing voices, revealing inner conflicts within the birthday celebration.

The cracks regarded when the Central Govt chosen Congress MP Shashi Tharoor to ebook an all-birthday celebration delegation to the US and South American countries to present India’s stance on Operation Sindoor, a militia exercise performed put up Pahalgam terror assault in April of this yr to neutralise Pakistan’s terror infrastructure.

Congress had no longer suggested Tharoor’s identify to be integrated within the delegations and felt that the BJP “played game” with them.

Later, Tharoor heaved reward for PM Modi over his going thru of the Operation Sindoor, which drew an indirect rebuke from Congress President Mallikarjun Kharge that while the birthday celebration believes in “nation first,” some leaders rob into fable it “Modi first, country later.”

Weighing in on the scenario, Yogesh Kamdar said Tharoor’s disagreement with the birthday celebration would now not form him a “BJP agent or RSS wala” and emphasised that the Congress needs to give its leaders more freedom.

Each and each Congress and Tharoor later downplayed the rift, with the birthday celebration exhibiting no indicators of taking action in opposition to a prominent face in Kerala, and Tharoor unwilling to form an ideological swing to the BJP.

In Karnataka, tensions also surfaced with the completion of two.5 years of Karnataka Chief Minister Siddaramaiah’s 5-yr duration of time, with Deputy CM DK Shivakumar reminding him of the reported pact of vitality alternate. Alternatively,

Siddaramaiah remained adamant about serving the fat duration of time, which introduced Karnataka governance to a standstill, with leaders working to Delhi to resolve the battle.

Devendra Pai credited the high management for the tussle, highlighting the organisational weakness for a repetition of Rajasthan.

“The power tussle in Karnataka is continuing because of the absence of proper leadership at the top. The same thing also happened in Rajasthan, It was Sachin Pilot vs Ashok Gehlot, and the Congress could not take a proper call. And eventually they lost Rajasthan,” he said.

“A good thing is that the BJP has not given a chance to their leadership to have a power tussle in the state. If in Maharashtra, the BJP thinks that our leader is Devendra Fadnavis, then the Centre comes behind his leader rather than promoting someone to balance the power,” he added.

Even though Siddaramaiah and DK Shivakumar have tried to resolve the battle over dinner talks but no obvious agreement has been reached yet. As neither chief is tantalizing to desert their pursuit of vitality, we can demand this fight to elongate smartly into 2026.

2026 is an essential years in phrases of elections with Assam, West Bengal, Tamil Nadu, Kerala, and Puducherry going to polls in April-May perhaps even, but for a turnaround in performance, it is miles evidently clear that Congress need serious introspection of its contrivance.

In step with Devendra Pai, Congress first have to resolve its ‘ideological crisis’ and earn a model to counter the BJP’s dominance over narrative constructing. “BJP is clear about its ideology. They stand for Hindutva or patriotism, and the leaders who come in the BJP also follow this. This is non-compromised. So Congress has to define itself rather than living in past glory,” he said.

“BJP is not allowing Congress to set the agenda. Congress has lost in terms of leadership, organisational strength, narrative setting, and to maintain their image in the media,” he added.

Devendra Pai also hinted that Congress can capitalise on the BJP’s anti-incumbency if it must overtake the management.

“I mediate it is miles excessive time that you can additionally have a natural chief. When there would possibly be an organic chief who comes from the grassroot, then things will commerce. Leadership commerce will raise an organisational commerce. This would possibly well perhaps perhaps perchance additionally just become sturdy. For the BJP, there’ll seemingly be anti-incumbency of 10 years in some states and within the centre, there’ll seemingly be a 15-yr anti-incumbency within the Lok Sabha,”

Devendra Pai added that to raise such commerce and contest in opposition to the BJP, Congress management “need to become fat-time politicians. Fragment-time politicians can not attain that.”

Yogesh Kamdar also echoed these sentiments, advising the birthday celebration to pursue the “optimum” contrivance for its survival.

“Congress has many intelligent people who can steer it out of the problem, who can give it a direction. For survival, a party has to do the optimum that will increase the chance of survival and its acceptability, which they have failed to do,” he said.

Congress President Mallikarjun Kharge at the clean Congress Working Committee (CWC) vowed to proceed the birthday celebration’s fight in opposition to the ruling birthday celebration’s attempts to curb the freedom of Constitutional institutions. The birthday celebration also decided to oppose the lately enacted VB-G RAM-G Act, which seeks to interchange MGNREGA.

Kharge talked about the appointments of district presidents as share of the birthday celebration’s strive to give a boost to the organisation, but he made no acknowledgement of management failures and supplied no contrivance for the upcoming elections. Alternatively, there had been some vital words there, similar to “organisation, unity, and democracy.”