NEW DELHI: Congress had a roller-coaster ride in 2014 from the commanding heights of power to the lowest depths of defeat as the Narendra Modi-led BJP juggernaut decimated it in Lok Sabha and successive assembly polls.
Undoubtedly, 2014 turned out to be one of the worst years for the party which brought freedom to India and presided over its destiny over most of the time since Independence.
It failed to secure even the Leader of the Opposition post in the Lok Sabha with its tally down to just 44 in a House of 543.
As if this was not enough, the Opposition space too turned competitive. While it was denied the LoP status in Lok Sabha, Trinamool Congress, BJD and SP tried to form a triumvirate group seeking the post as an alliance in place of Congress.
After two tenures in power, Congress’ tally plummeted to a mere 44 from 206, it had notched in the 2009 general election, marking the dramatic slump in its popularity within a span of five years. It also suffered reverses in the states that went to assembly polls.
Questions were raised about the efficacy of Rahul Gandhi’s leadership after successive defeats but the party mandarins were quick to snub the dissenting voices and the Congress vice president in the fag end of the year held a meeting with party general secretaries on the strategy to arrest the decline of support base and revive the party.
While everything went right for BJP, disaster struck Congress this year.
Its defeat trail did not stop at the Lok Sabha elections. The party lost power in two states Maharashtra and Haryana in October after ruling them in alliance and alone for 15 and 10 years respectively while the year-end saw its exit from power in Jammu and Kashmir and Jharkhand where it participated in government in alliance with National Conference and JMM-RJD respectively.
The ambitious UPA experiment through which Sonia Gandhi had brought the Congress to power a decade ago was in tatters.
UPA ally NCP decided to support BJP in government
formation in Maharashtra after it fought the Assembly election in Maharashtra separately from Congress breaking the 15-year- long political alliance between the two parties in the state.
Congress had fought the election in Jharkhand in alliance with JD(U) and RJD but had broken off from the lead partner JMM. The result in the state has put some sort of a question mark on the efficacy of the proposed grand alliance of the three parties in Bihar, where elections are due by October next year.
Soon after the result, a senior party leader put the blame on state leaders for the loss in Jharkhand saying it happened because the alliance was not continued due to their insistence to go alone.
Ever since the Lok Sabha defeat in May, blame game has continued in Congress with some saying poor communication strategy led to defeat and others holding the UPA government responsible.
The year also saw Sonia and Rahul offering to resign owning defeat for Congress’ Lok Sabha debacle.
Soon after the results were announced, both of them made an offer to resign at a meeting of the Congress Working Committee, which was, on expected lines, rejected overwhelmingly with the party reiterating its belief in their leadership.
A few in a hush hush tone put the responsibility for defeat on Rahul’s team, an euphemism to criticise the leadership of the Congress Vice President, who was clearly the face of the party for the general elections.
Some others saw too much focus on minority issues and “reducing party’s ideology from equal importance to all sections to somewhat crass minoritysm”, as a reason why different sections of voters from the majority community rallied around BJP.
The soul searching continues even as a panel led by party veteran A K Antony submitted a mammoth report on reasons of the defeat and the way ahead.
(AGENCIES)
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