The Congress on Wednesday chose to read the results of the by-elections across the country as further proof of its re-emergence as a dominant party and the only pan-Indian movement after Independence.
Though the party had suffered reverses in West Bengal, Congress spokesman Abhishek Singhvi used the party’s official platform to assert that in an alliance what mattered was the combined result of the partners and not individual successes.
In West Bengal, the Congress managed to hold on to only one Assembly segment, while two of the 10 seats which went to the polls were in its kitty earlier. With the Trinamool Congress winning all the seven seats it contested, there is apprehension within the State unit of the Congress that the TC is gaining at the expense of the larger party.
Officially, however, the Congress maintained that there was no sense of consternation over the way the Trinamool Congress was gaining strength. “It is fundamentally and conceptually wrong to talk of wins or losses of individuals in an alliance. You win or lose as part of the alliance when you go together,” Mr. Singhvi said, even as other leaders maintained that the Congress entered into the “strategic tie-up” with the Trinamool Congress knowing full well the pitfalls, but with the larger goal in mind.
‘Agitational politics’
Referring to the results of the by-elections in West Bengal and Kerala — where the Congress-led alliance swept the three seats in contest — Mr. Singhvi said voters had punished the Left parties for their brand of “agitational politics.”
Stating that the writing on the wall in the two States was clear, Mr. Singhvi accused the Left parties of being opportunistic for forging an alliance ahead of the Lok Sabha elections to split the secular vote.
“They displayed a great propensity for unholy alliances,” he said with reference to the attempt to provide a third alternative during the Lok Sabha polls.
In the case of Uttar Pradesh, the Congress is drawing great joy from the victory in the by-election to the Firozabad Lok Sabha constituency, a fiefdom of Samajwadi Party leader Mulayam Singh.
“For years, the Congress has not had a footprint in this area,” Mr. Singhvi said, adding that this victory was because of the “visible and invisible hand” of party general secretary Rahul Gandhi, whose experiment with restructuring the party’s frontal organisations had begun to show dividend.
Given that the Congress could not pick up a single Assembly segment in U.P., Mr. Singhvi was quick to concede that despite the headway the party had made in recent months, it still had miles to go for a comeback.
