After setback in assembly polls, Congress braces for a make-or-break 2024
Narendra Modi hopes to equal Jawaharlal Nehru's record of returning to the PMO thrice in a row, the new year is also being seen by many as one of the toughest periods for the Congress in its 138-year journey.
It will also mark 40 years since Congress scaled its electoral peak in 1984 winning a record 414 Lok Sabha seats. With just 48 seats in the Lower House of Parliament now, the party has experienced a steady decline in the last 10 years.
In 2024, as Congress hopes to arrest this slide, it will face multiple challenges, the topmost being finalizing seat-sharing deals with constituents of the anti-BJP INDIA bloc which is yet to make any electoral impact.
The Congress will begin these negotiations on a weak footing, having lost the Hindi heartland states of Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and Chhattisgarh to the BJP. The defeats have upset the Congress' calculations as it was hoping to sustain the momentum gained by the victories in Himachal Pradesh in 2022 and in Karnataka in 2023.
The losses are most likely to prove demoralizing for the party cadre just ahead of the 2024 general elections as the Hindi belt states play a major role in determining the outcome. In 2019, the BJP had won 141 seats — 71 per cent of those contested — in the Hindi heartland.
A poll analyst feels that the 2024 Lok Sabha polls are significant for the Congress considering that it has lost two general elections badly.
It is a «make or break situation for the party now,» the analyst said.
The Congress is now in power on its own in just three states — Himachal Pradesh Karnataka and Telangana. While Himachal Pradesh is the only north Indian state the party now rules it has just four Lok Sabha seats.
