Congress scripts its doomsday

It seems Congress has conceded defeat in the Lok Sabha polls even before commencement of polling.

With senior party leaders refraining to contest polls fearing debacle and several others admitting openly the negative sentiments among the party cadres and people, the battle lines are clearly drawn for Congress – for a sure shot defeat!

Several senior leaders and heads of UPA allies have openly predicting the doom for Congress with Sharad Pawar of Nationalist Congress Party and senior Congress leader and Union Minister Jairam Ramesh joining the bandwagon recently.

So, it is clear that even before the start of the election, the Congress has lost its way while its political rival BJP, driving on ‘Modi wave’, is surging ahead towards the victory line -- a comfortable majority in the Lok Sabha to form a government.

While Sharad Pawar, who has until recently insisted that there is "no Modi wave," has been quoted by a Marathi newspaper as predicting that the Narendra Modi-led BJP will be the single largest party after the general elections.

He said, the century-old party will come second followed by regional parties such as AIADMK led by Jayalalithaa or Trinamool Congress headed by Mamata Banerjee vying for the third place.

Being a strongest ally of the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance, Sharad Pawar’s observation has been seen as a clear differerence among the UPA partners and possible bickering inside the party.

Union Minister Jairam Ramesh has openly admitted that the party has lost the battle of perception, as the top leadership has not been ‘communicative’.

Give reasons for his view, he said, “Hyperactive judiciary, overactive constitutional functionaries like CAG, aggressive media and irresponsible civil society combined… Our reaction was also slow. We did not communicate our point of view effectively. Our top leadership was not communicative.”  He later maintained that his party would get a decent three-digit figure.

Recently several of the senior leaders such as Finance minister P Chidambaram, Union shipping minister GK Vasan, former union minister K V Thangkabalu, Commerce and Industries Minister Anand Sharma, Manish Tiwari among others had expressed their inability to contest the elections for reasons better known to them.

According to political pundits ‘fear factor’ might be the reason for these leaders to back out from the polls. 

The Congress and its allies have involved in series of scams, which has given a stick in the hands of opposition to beat them up in the election.

Also, there is a lack of bonhomie witnessing among the Congress leaders and cadres across the country in campaigning, which indicates that all is not well in Congress. Probably, the party has become tired of ruling the country for the last one decade.

Another important thing is that there is no leader in the party who can be projected as ‘prime ministerial candidate’ like BJP did much before the announcement of the election dates.

Though Rahul Gandhi is a prominent leader, he can’t take on Modi or any other senior leaders from the opposition camp. He is a political naive and need more grooming to face the real life situation.

So, on paper, it is BJP all the way. But electorates are highly unpredictable, whoever convince them better will get their votes, that is India.