Despite achieving a landslide victory in the state of Kerala, the Indian National Congress otherwise has very little to smile about, after they were yet again decimated by the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA) across the country in the recently concluded Lok Sabha elections. For a party which has formed the government at the centre for most part in the history of democratic India, it has come as a rude shock when it was known that the Congress has not won a single seat in 13 states and five Union Territories.
After all the talk of resisting the formation of a BJP-led government at the Centre, the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance (UPA) could only secure a pitiable 90 seats across the country, out of which 19 came from Kerala. Out of the total 90 seats secured by the UPA, the Congress contributed just 52 seats, with a vote share of 19.6%. Meanwhile, the BJP, which was the major counterpart of the Congress, managed to secure a thumping 303 seats, and the NDA as a whole managed to collect 350 seats out of the total 542 seats.
The Congress was not able to win a single seat in the National Capital Territory of Delhi; the states of Andhra Pradesh, Arunachal Pradesh, Gujarat, Haryana, Himachal Pradesh, Jammu & Kashmir, Manipur, Mizoram, Nagaland, Rajasthan, Sikkim, Tripura, and Uttarakhand; and the Union Territories of Chandigarh, Dadra and Nagar Haveli, Daman and Diu, and Lakshadweep. In Uttar Pradesh, India’s largest state, the party managed to win just one seat – Sonia Gandhi’s Rae Bareli.
As far as Delhi was concerned, it was a clean sweep for the BJP as it won in all the seven constituencies in the NCT. Congress secured a total of 22.51% of votes, which was not enough to stop the BJP, which secured a total of 56.56% votes. It was a clean sweep for the BJP in Gujarat as well, where the Congress managed to secure just 32.11% of the votes against the BJP’s 62.61%.
The other notable defeat for the Congress was in Rajasthan, where the party had recently come to power in December 2018. In Rajasthan, BJP won 24 out of the total 25 seats, whereas the Rashtriya Loktantrik Party won the remaining seat. The Congress managed to poll a total of 34.24% of the votes.
In the south, Kerala is the only place where the Congress can proudly say that they had a resounding victory after most of their leaders managed to win with a margin of more than one lakh votes. In Tamil Nadu, where the Congress was in a coalition with the DMK, CPI(M) and the IUML, the party managed to win eight seats, with a total vote share of 12.76%.
But in every other state, despite the fact that the party was able to secure a vote percentage of 30 to 40%, they were only able to win two to three seats each.
Addressing a press conference after the defeat of the UPA, Rahul Gandhi, the Congress President had said, “I want to tell all Congress cadres and leaders, those who have won or lost, do not be scared. There is no need to be scared. We will continue this ideological fight and win.”