Despite ensuring Priyanka Gandhi’s massive victory in the Lok Sabha and another by-poll victory to the state assembly, all is not well with the Kerala unit of the Congress. The current leadership under KPCC president K Sudhakaran and opposition leader V D Satheesan have been struggling to rise to the stature of their predecessors and win the trust of party workers. The vacuum left by tall leaders such as Oommen Chandy, A K Antony and even K Karunakaran, who could inspire the party cadre, is being increasingly felt on the ground.
The thumping victory in Wayanad had more with Rahul Gandhi’s impact than the effectiveness of his party’s state leadership. The last emphatic victory the Congress-led UDF had in the state was in 2001, when it won 99 out of the assembly’s 140 seats. Though it came back to power in 2011, its majority over LDF was wafer-thin—of just one seat. In the last election, when the LDF created history in the state by forming the government for the second time on the trot, the Congress won just 21 seats of the 93 it contested.
Though the Congress never had an organisational structure as strong as the CPI(M)’s, it could always come back to power in alternate elections. But the scenario has changed with the entry of the BJP—that it bagged 11.3 per cent of the votes in the last assembly polls and its candidates came second in nine constituencies does not augur well for the Congress.
The KPCC revamp that started after the dismal rout in 2021 has been going on without much effect on the ground. UDF leaders, who have been urging an overhaul, are also asking the uneasy question about the seats Congress can hope to win without the Muslim League’s support. Given the way things happen in the grand old party, its high command should take proactive steps to reinvigorate the state unit.
If the Congress has to benefit from the strong anti-incumbency against the ruling LDF, it should ensure that the state leadership is entrusted to those who are able to take everyone along. With not much time left before the next elections, the Congress’s national leadership must act swiftly if Kerala is to remain one of its few reliable bastions.