Dinesh Kamath's Editorial 'Why Congress lost?' that was published in Newsband

Why Congress lost?

Even with the largest number of seats in Manipur and Goa, Congress party has managed to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory. After squabbling among themselves, the Congress held a secret ballot to choose a leader and then sent the name onto the high command to decide on it. Meanwhile, the BJP, displaying some deft footwork, cobbled together the numbers and staked claim to form the government, a ready candidate for chief minister in the form of Manohar Parrikar in place.

Similarly, in Manipur, despite the largest number of seats, the Congress party was not quick enough to bring smaller parties into its fold and make a legitimate claim to form the government. But given the delay, the BJP was able to show that it had numbers on its side. The Congress, which has gone to the courts, got the reply that if it had the numbers it should have shown this in time.

Once masters at outwitting opponents in the numbers game, today it seems like a rabbit caught in the headlights as a nimble BJP runs rings around it. Don’t forget that the BJP and all other political parties in India learnt the tricks of the trade from the grand old party.

Early bird catches the worm. In this world of instant communication, laggards like Congress party with an incompetent High command is bound to fail. Unless they change their way of working there will be no one except Sonia Gandhi, Rahul Gandhi & Dogvijay Singh left in the party for the next election.

The Congress must see this defeat in Uttar Pradesh and its political failures in other states as a signal that it must rethink its brand of politics. The Congress needs to reinvent itself drastically, now.

BJP will have to do something drastic in Tripura where this time also CPIM won. CPIM under its incompetent leadership have destroyed Tripura leaving 8 lakhs unemployed poor youths languishing day in and day out. Left have been a champion in hardcore nepotism and corruption. Lack of high end Industry, Unemployment and poor economic state of affairs can be few areas to be capitalized upfront. People of Tripura have had enough of sufferings. Time for a change now.

With a record (highest in India) 25.2% of unemployment Left ruled Tripura continues to bite dust of under-development and non-performance due to state's outdated policies of being anti development and industry without realizing that World and India's economy is driven by Business and technology. There need to be high end industry and jobs and setting up of required infrastructure on a war footing in Tripura.