Coupled with the failure in Assam, the Kerala debacle severely dents Congress’s standing as the principal player against the Modi-led BJP
NEW DELHI: The impact of Congress’s failure to win in Kerala, allowing the Left Front to buck the “pendulum politics” of the state, threatens to be vastly disproportionate to the state’s size and the marginal space it occupies in the national political firmament.
The defeat magnifies the now-entrenched impression about Congress’s post-2019 decline. That the party could not win a state where not just history backed it to prevail but where its arch nemesis BJP is not a factor, echoes its fading appeal. Assam, on the other hand, was a tough ask for Congress post-Tarun Gogoi as it was opposite of Kerala.
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From Kerala s beaches to the lush rice paddies of Bengal, from the river valleys of Assam to bustling Tamil Nadu towns, one figure strides the landscape: the regional satrap. The assembly polls of 2021 mark a new high in the rule of local bosses, giving this important message to all political parties: localize your brand. Just when the BJP s national dominance seemed unstoppable, the limits of the saffron party s expansionism have been exposed. Local strongmen - and a very strong local woman - have brought the BJP s conquering horse to a halt.
Himanta Biswa Sarma loves being the centre of attention, and has never shied away from working for it. That’s how he rose from student leader to BJP’s star in Assam. In his long political career, he has met defeat only once, in 1996, when he contested on a Congress ticket from Jalukbari.
Five years later, when he won a seat, CM Tarun Gogoi kept him on the bench for a year before inducting him as a minister of state. Sarma played second fiddle until 2015, when he challenged Gogoi’s leadership, but Congress chief Sonia Gandhi persuaded him to step back. When BJP poached him to breach Congress’ bastion, he steered the party to its first win in Assam in 2016, and became Amit Shah’s favourite. After that, he engineered the induction of BJP governments, alone or in alliance, in all the seven northeast states.
BJP and its allies’ comfortable win in the complex state of Assam makes history it is the first non-Congress party to win back-to-back elections to the 126-seat assembly.
Assam, once seen as a Congress bastion, is bisected by the Brahmaputra which divides the land into the north bank and the south bank. The southern belt is also home to hill districts where local parties are significant contenders. There is also the Bengali-dominated Barak valley where BJP has long had influence. Barring a handful of constituencies, the saffron party retained much of the gains it had made in 2016. The dumping of its old ally, the Bodoland People’s Party of Hangrama Mohilary (which had earlier allied with Congress under Tarun Gogoi), late last year did not slow its advance to office.
Express News Service
GUWAHATI: The hotchpotch alliance of 10 Assam Opposition parties with contrasting ideologies which also had no chief ministerial face found few takers in the polls.
The “Mahajot”, formed two months ago to oust the BJP from power, was led by the Congress but it has been faced with a leadership crisis and plagued by factionalism ever since the death of former Chief Minister Tarun Gogoi.
The Congress and the minority-based All India United Democratic Front (AIUDF) had come together to thwart the split of anti-BJP and anti-Asom Gana Parishad (AGP) votes. In the 2016 elections, their combined vote share was more than that of the winning candidates from the BJP-led alliance in 14 seats.