New Delhi, India — Somewhat greater than two months in the past, the Congress get together, India’s greatest opposition drive, gave the impression to be on a roll.

Rahul Gandhi, the chief of what’s the nation’s oldest political motion, the get together of Mahatma Gandhi, had attracted giant crowds on a nationwide march, rekindling hopes within the Congress that had been struggling for relevance after a collection of political setbacks.

In May, the get together received legislative elections within the southern state of Karnataka that’s house to startup capital Bengaluru, unseating Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party. And it was projected, in opinion polls, to win 4 out of five states – Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, Telangana, Chattisgarh and Mizoram – that voted for his or her state assemblies in November.

Those predicted wins, get together veterans stated, would have supplied the ballast for the Congress to take Modi on within the common elections that are actually weeks away.

Just the alternative occurred. The opinion polls have been improper. The Congress received solely Telangana.

“All opinion polls showed Congress was ahead by 2 percent votes in Madhya Pradesh elections, but we lost by 8 percent of votes. How did the final results go contrary to these opinion polls?” asks senior get together chief, Digvijay Singh, former chief minister of the central Indian state.

Answering that query and related ones tied to the gulf between the get together’s hopes and up to date outcomes, rapidly might be central to the possibilities of the 138-year-old get together because it prepares to lock horns with Modi within the coming nationwide vote, say analysts and Congress leaders.

A powerful displaying in these state elections would have validated Rahul Gandhi’s Bharat Jodo Yatra (Uniting India March), which had seen him stroll greater than 4,000km (2,485 miles) over 150 days, from the nation’s southern tip, Kanyakumari, to Indian-administered Kashmir within the north. In many of the states that voted in November, the Congress was in a direct one-on-one contest with the BJP and was within the opposition, hoping to reap the advantages of anti-incumbency voter sentiment towards the ruling authorities.

What went improper?

One Congress chief in Madhya Pradesh, who requested anonymity, claimed that he had warned the get together management that it wanted to pay attention mobilisation efforts across the state’s 21 p.c tribal vote, however that his makes an attempt at persuasion failed. “Congress was very complacent,” the chief stated. The BJP, he stated, gained, specializing in tribal communities, and securing their votes. Many of the seats that the Congress had received within the 2018 meeting elections flipped to the BJP. The identical script performed out in Rajasthan and Chattisgarh the place the BJP additionally received the majority of seats the place tribal votes dominate, reversing what had occurred in 2018.

Party insiders additionally accuse leaders of vanity, in spurning the gives of smaller regional events just like the Samajwadi Party, which is based totally in Uttar Pradesh, India’s most populous state, but additionally has a small presence in Madhya Pradesh.

Some, like former chief minister Singh, see a extra nefarious plot unfolding: he alleged that the rigging of digital voting machines and a mechanism to maintain a paper path of voting had allowed the BJP to buck opinion polls within the latest elections.

But there’s little laborious proof of systematic rigging in these elections, and critics of the Congress level out that it’s fast to simply accept outcomes when it wins utilizing the identical processes that it criticises whereas shedding.

Many Congress leaders don’t agree with Singh’s assertion. One of them stated that in Madhya Pradesh, it was clear that the get together was shedding – not due to any foul play however due to poor “both management”, a reference to the follow of get together employees guaranteeing that their voters come and vote at each polling station.

The Congress has tried to revive its fortunes by embracing regional events in a nationwide coalition referred to as the INDIA alliance. That transfer compelled the BJP to rethink its personal technique.

But since then, the BJP has efficiently chipped away on the INDIA alliance: Nitish Kumar, the chief minister of the northern state of Bihar has damaged away and joined the BJP-led NDA coalition. West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee has additionally walked out of INDIA, although it’s unclear whether or not she is going to be a part of the NDA that she was as soon as part of twenty years in the past.

Many Congress allies have confronted the wrath of regulation enforcement companies managed by the Modi authorities in New Delhi, similar to the previous chief minister of the central state of Jharkhand, Hemant Soren, who was arrested in January on corruption-linked prices that he denies.

Yet, the Congress itself can be responsible for events breaking away from its alliance, admit get together insiders. One motive? Its refusal, they are saying, to adequately accommodate companions in seat-sharing, a priority that Bihar’s Kumar raised, too.

At the center of that failure is a problem that the Congress faces, stated Sanjay Kumar, political analyst and professor on the Centre for the Study of Developing Societies in New Delhi. It desires to collaborate with smaller events in the intervening time, however in the long term desires to compete from all parliamentary seats by itself.

“The Congress party is suffering from a dilemma between the short and the long term,” stated Kumar.

In a bid to shift public opinion in favour of the Congress get together, Rahul Gandhi has tried a repeat of his earlier lengthy march. The Bharat Jodo Nyay Yatra (Uniting India Through Justice March), the most recent iteration, guarantees to cowl 6,500km (4,000 miles) from the nation’s east to the west.

However, specialists have questioned whether or not it is sensible for the get together to be specializing in grand philosophical questions when the nation is within the throes of winner-takes-it-all election campaigning.

“The yatra is oddly timed. When the party’s attention and imagination should be fully geared for the Lok Sabha poll, it has become a distraction,” stated political analyst Harish Khare, referring to the decrease home of the Indian parliament. “Neither has Rahul managed to snatch the narrative away from the BJP, nor has he enthused the Congress rank and file.”

Many of the states that the brand new march had handed via – together with West Bengal and Bihar – have been on the time dominated by INDIA member events. Banerjee, the West Bengal chief minister, publicly questioned the intent of the march passing via an ally’s state.

Critics have requested whether or not the march is a part of an effort to construct Rahul Gandhi’s personal model.

But former Indian finance minister and veteran Congress chief P Chidambaram disagrees. “Rahul is not hankering for power. If he had wanted to, he would have been PM long ago,” Chidambaram stated.

Chidambaram identified that in a overwhelming majority of the 543 seats within the Lok Sabha, INDIA alliance members could be in direct fights with the BJP and its coalition.

But whereas the Congress has been arguing that the approaching elections are essentially a struggle over the survival of Indian democracy, and has been portray the BJP as an authoritarian-minded drive, analysts say it’s struggling to win voters over to that narrative.

“The Congress does not have a positive agenda,” stated Kumar, the CSDS analyst. “Even on the issue of the BJP constituting a threat to democracy and freedom of expression, the people are not really convinced about it.”

The disquiet throughout the get together has grown in latest days. Ashok Chavan, a senior chief and former chief minister in Maharashtra – which boasts probably the most seats within the Lok Sabha after Uttar Pradesh – left the Congress to hitch the BJP. He promptly bought nominated to the Rajya Sabha, the higher home of parliament.

On Friday, the Congress get together alleged that its bank accounts had been frozen over allegations of tax default.

Chidambaram, who’s a part of the Congress crew drafting the get together’s manifesto, stated that folks have been anxious about inflation, which has continued at greater than 4 p.c for nearly all of Modi’s present time period in workplace, and unemployment, which hovers round 8 p.c.

But he acknowledged that the get together would want to channel any public anger in its favour for the Congress to be “in a position to win against the BJP.” And it doesn’t have a lot time left.