The drubbing that the Congress received in Tripura, Meghalaya and Nagaland drove home the bitter truth that the AICC-inspired narrative about the ‘dramatic popular upswing’ for Rahul Gandhi and the Congress, courtesy the Bharat Jodo Yatra, has no empirical evidence among voters as the first electoral bouts post-Rahul Yatra show that the ‘turnaround spin’ now rests on its hawkers’ shoulders, as the BJP and its allies braved incumbency burdens and ‘Adani issue’ to romp home in a region of strategic importance for the RSS.

Given Rahul Gandhi’s right to inheritance of Congress’ de facto leadership insulates him from expanding the poor record of vote-catching, the hattrick-defeats in the North-East, would neither affect his position or ‘sway’ among the ‘nominated’ party office-bearers. Hopefully, Kharge won’t be blamed.

The AICC laboured hard to ringfence Gandhi from media questions about his role, especially for not campaigning (barring a solo outing). “These are assembly elections. In gram panchayat, nagar palika and assembly elections, the local leadership matters. In Meghalaya, our entire 21 MLAs had migrated to other parties….Now, to say our (non) performance in NE states was because our national leaders didn’t campaign is a wrong interpretation. Our local party organisations were weak,” said AICC communication in-charge, Jairam Ramesh.

Ironically, last time AICC could work a celebration in honour of Rahul Gandhi “for delivering victory” was when the Congress leaders of Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and Chhattisgarh fought and defeated BJP in 2018. Priyanka Vadra, who rode the anticipated Congress tide in the HP poll, avoided her ‘star punch’ in the tricky N-E campaign.

As for the task of ‘overseeing’ the “re-building” of the local Congress organisation in the North East is concerned, the Gandhis-led leadership had the ‘good sense’ to entrust Ajoy Kumar, a frequent lightweight political traveller (from JVM to Congress to AAP and then back to Congress) with Nagaland and Tripura PCCs, and Manish Chatrath, whose core specialisation has been about arranging chartered flights or flight tickets for AICC office-bearers, with the Meghalaya PCC. Even as anti-BJP parties of the three states, now guard against poaching, latest Congress defeats will add to the work for a Third Front.

CPM- COngress ‘ tripura Debacle

CPM-Congress alliance’s Tripura debacle again underscored that it was easy for Sitaram Yechury & Co to glib-talk and trick Rahul & Co to make the state Congress unit play second fiddle to Marxists than ‘domesticating’ Tripura Congress leaders and workers, who have long borne the brunt of the erstwhile Left governments’ discrimination and CPM cadres’ attacks. The spectacle of CPM slipping into third position, behind even Tipra Motha, in the very second election post-monopoly power in Tripura (the CPM ceded Opposition space to BJP in Bengal in the third losing election), raises question marks on its organisational prowess and cadre base.Tripura CPM going the Bengal way, not only weakens the political line of general secretary Sitaram Yechury vis a vis de facto helmsman Pinarayi Vijayan (and the Karat group) who already attended non-Congress Opposition conclave hosted by BRS. It also raises questions about CPM’s credentials in fighting BJP (Marxists now win only against Congress+ in Kerala) and to be the larger-than-life micro-phone of larger anti-BJP Opposition politics. Without elaborating on the party’s sinking further in Tripura, CPM politburo pointed out to BJP’s narrower victory margin.