My Take | India’s Congress needs to change course or face oblivion
A string of defeats in state elections to the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party shows that Congress and its allies have lost their way
The victory of India’s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi in the Delhi state elections this month has raised the prospects of a country saddled with a weak opposition along with a potential reversal of its thriving democracy.
The ruling party has for a long time rallied its supporters to aim for an India free from the presence of the Indian National Congress, the main national opposition party, which ruled the country for decades from independence in 1947.
After a brief resurgence in the general election last year – when the opposition INDIA alliance made inroads into the BJP’s Hindu heartland states, leading to the ruling party’s loss of parliamentary majority – Congress has since scored several own goals.
In the run up to the polls in Delhi, Congress leaders such as Rahul Gandhi and state leaders such as Sandeep Dixit, accused their partner in the opposition alliance, the Aam Aadmi Party and its leader Arvind Kejriwal, of corruption and a lack of transparency.
The saga left voters in India’s national capital scratching their heads on whether Congress and the Aam Aadmi Party had entered into a marriage of convenience and lost their way.
The clash was believed to have significantly contributed to the end of the Aam Aadmi Party’s 10-year rule in Delhi while Congress failed to win a single seat in the state, where it was a dominant force just a decade ago.