The closer Odisha comes to its first phase of polls, the faster the Congress seems to be unravelling in the state. There are three major political parties in the fray. The ruling Biju Janata Dal and the challenger BJP are engaged in a no-holds-barred contest. But the Congress is busy fighting its own demons. Last week, the party’s Puri Lok Sabha candidate Sucharita Mohanty returned her ticket days before the nominations closed, citing a lack of funds for campaigning.
She was apparently told by the party that her constituency was in a category in which the candidate must fend for herself or himself. For the record, at her first electoral outing in 2014, Mohanty polled 2.59 lakh votes. The grand old party has, so far, changed candidates in 10 assembly and two parliamentary constituencies, leaving little scope for the nominees to even make a serious bid. On Sunday, its change of the Puri assembly candidate led to violence.
This is only a symptom of the greater malaise that has gripped the party. This election presented the Congress a chance to regain political space in the state when the BJD and BJP were busy planning an alliance. It was an ideal opportunity to take up the vacant opposition space, but the party—riddled with favouritism, infighting and a self-over-party ideology—squandered it. It was on show when a nondescript place was chosen for Rahul Gandhi’s campaign meeting on April 28.
While a politically strategic location could have created an impact over the bigger region, the candidate’s interest was preferred to the party’s. Unsurprisingly, many of its senior members with electoral relevance quit ahead of the elections to join either the BJD or the BJP. Disenchanted by the top leadership’s inability to grasp the situation—the need for young leaders, resources and change—the Congress has seen exodus of even its hardcore followers.
In Odisha, once ruled by the Congress for close to 40 years, there are still pockets where the party enjoys support, but has made little effort to revive it. With its base slipping away fast, the GOP could find itself decimated as the BJD and BJP are out to swallow its vote share. The opposition space is important in a democracy. But such is the state of affairs that the Congress appears in no mood to even grab that role.