Congress stares at seat-sharing hiccups after drubbing in Haryana, Jammu

The Congress party’s shock defeat in Haryana and its complete failure to halt the BJP’s electoral expansion in the Jammu region could cost the party dear when it negotiates seat-sharing agreements with its allies for the forthcoming Jharkhand and Maharashtra Assembly polls.

It is premature to predict if the results of the Haryana and Jammu and Kashmir Assembly polls, per se, would impact the Opposition’s electoral prospects in the two poll-bound states, or in Delhi, which is also scheduled for elections in early 2025. The fact that the Congress emerged as the weak link of the Jammu and Kashmir alliance, winning just six of the 37 seats it contested in the Union territory, and snatched defeat from the jaws of a widely-expected triumph in Haryana, is bound to significantly dent the palpable buoyancy that the Congress, in particular, and the INDIA bloc, in general, had been riding on ever since it brought the BJP down to a 240-seat mark in the June Lok Sabha polls.

Also Read: Haryana win, J&K show will silence BJP’s critics, strengthen Modi's hold over NDA

Conversations that The Federal had with leaders from the INDIA bloc in Maharashtra and Jharkhand suggest that the Congress’s protestations over the Haryana elections being a “victory of the system and defeat of democracy” have found no takers in the Opposition grouping.

Bad optics for Congress

“What may or may not have happened behind the scenes is of no consequence now. In terms of the optics, this (the BJP’s win in Haryana and the Congress’s rout in Jammu) looks very bad. It strengthens the impression that the Congress cannot take on the BJP on its own steam and even when it has strong allies, it is for the allies to carry the Congress without necessarily getting anything in return. More importantly, the BJP’s performance gives a boost to Narendra Modi just when we in the INDIA bloc had begun to assert that he had been rendered a weak prime minister after the Lok Sabha results,” a senior NCP (Sharad Pawar) leader said.

Also Read: ‘Against ground reality’: Congress refuses to accept Haryana poll result

A JMM MP expressed a similar view while adding that “in the context of Jharkhand, we (the Jharkhand Mukti Morcha) will have to think carefully on how many seats we should spare for the Congress because while we are confident of protecting our tribal base, these results show that the Congress can’t be relied upon to deliver wins in seats where it has a direct fight with the BJP and the voters are predominantly from the forward Hindu castes or even backward castes”.

Congress leaders from both poll-bound states also admitted that the BJP’s unprecedented third consecutive win in Haryana and its near sweep of the Hindu-dominated Jammu region (though the National Conference-Congress alliance will form the new Jammu and Kashmir government) will adversely impact the INDIA bloc’s narrative over the coming weeks.

Loss of face for INDIA bloc

“This verdict allows Modi and the BJP to go back on the offensive. The momentum we had gained after the Lok Sabha polls will certainly take a hit now. For us (in the Congress), it is most damaging. If you heard Modi (the prime minister spoke from the BJP headquarters after Tuesday’s poll results), it was clear that he plans to continue singling out the Congress for his most stinging attacks and somehow create a wedge in our alliance,” a former Congress MP from Jharkhand told The Federal.

Also Read: Haryana: Another wasted election sets stage for more mud-slinging in Congress

Congress sources said the party had had preliminary discussions for its seat-sharing agreements with its allies in Maharashtra and Jharkhand but the final blueprint of the two alliances was to take shape later this month. Sources said the Congress’s drubbing in Haryana and Jammu and Kashmir will now allow tough negotiators like Sharad Pawar and Uddhav Thackeray in Maharashtra and even the somewhat pliant Hemant Soren in Jharkhand to “be more demanding”.

Hard negotiations ahead for Congress

“Pawar and Thackeray would have been hard bargainers even if we had performed well, but now that we have lost Haryana and failed miserably against the BJP in Jammu, they will extract their pound of flesh. It’s going to be a very hard negotiation and going solo, if we can’t get the seat-share we want, is not even an option for us,” a Congress functionary said.

This leader added that negotiations in Jharkhand are going to be just as difficult as Maharashtra because the Lok Sabha polls had suggested a consolidation of non-tribals behind the BJP while the tribals consolidated behind the INDIA bloc “because of Hemant Soren being in jail at the time, and, to a lesser extent, because of our social justice narrative”.

Also Read: J&K polls: NC, Abdullahs can bask in win, but must keep some lessons in mind

Much has, however, changed in Jharkhand since the Lok Sabha polls. Champai Soren, the tallest tribal leader in the JMM after Shibu Soren and Hemant Soren, had quit the JMM some months ago and joined the BJP, ostensibly on account of Hemant unceremoniously manoeuvring the tribal strongman from Kolhan out of the chief minister’s office.

Challenge of polarisation in Jharkhand

Champai’s exit aside, the BJP, with Assam Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma and Union minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan drawing out the party’s Jharkhand poll strategy, has also been trying to communally polarise Jharkhand ahead of the election by raising the issue of “increasing Muslim population in the state” and with allegations that “illegal Bangladeshi migrants” were pushing indigenous tribals out of the state, leading to a change in the demography.

With the BJP having already created a tribal versus non-tribal narrative in the state over the years – just as it triggered a Jat versus non-Jat pitch in Haryana, the “demographic change” narrative now creates a communal polarisation in the state. This creates an obvious challenge for the Congress, which had so far been unable to rally the non-tribals, particularly OBCs, into the INDIA bloc’s fold in Jharkhand and has, nationally, been more comfortable with giving sermons on Hindu philosophy and iconography instead of combating communal polarisation head on.

Congress-AAP alliance unlikely in Delhi

The Congress’s situation in Delhi is unlikely to be any better. It has already burnt its bridges with Arvind Kejriwal’s Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) even if, for the sake of optics, the AAP remains a part of the INDIA bloc nationally. The Congress and AAP had tried to reach a seat-sharing deal for Haryana, but abandoned the idea due to unreasonable demands for seats being made by the latter.

In Delhi, though the AAP may have its fair share of challenges owing to the continuing cases against its on-parole senior leadership, including Kejriwal and Manish Sisodia, it remains the most dominant party of the city-state. With the AAP-Congress alliance for Delhi’s seven Lok Sabha seats doing no electoral wonders for either party, both parties see no reason in continuing their arrangement for the ensuing assembly polls. Even if the Congress were to go pleading to Kejriwal for an alliance, AAP sources say the party will “not entertain” the request or at best “make them (the Congress) the same kind of offer they made to us when we discussed seat-sharing for Haryana”.

Also Read: PM Modi on BJP's Haryana success: 'Victory of politics of development'

Being out of power in Delhi for over a decade and having lost most of its organisational heft in this period, the Congress now has neither a strong leadership nor any credible cadre-base left in the national capital. Party sources say Lok Sabha’s leader of Opposition Rahul Gandhi and his sister, Congress general secretary Priyanka Gandhi, have agreed to hold a three-phase yatra in Delhi beginning later this month and tentatively concluding towards early December to reinvigorate the party ahead of the assembly polls.

Delhi Congress leaders, however, concede that the chances of the yatra doing “any wonders for the party electorally is highly unlikely” and may only end up splitting the AAP’s votes to give the BJP a direct electoral advantage – ironically an argument that the Congress gives for other parties seeking to expand in states where it has a bipolar contest against the BJP.