Chennai: Having played second fiddle to Dravidian majors for 50 years, Congress’s vote percentage has seen a steady decline in the past few years. It is likely to shrink further in the ensuing Assembly elections with the splinter group, Tamil Maanila Congress, set to take away some percentage from it.
As the national party gets ready to fight the Assembly elections in alliance with DMK, only news that comes out of the party is that of factional fights and allegations that senior leaders are promoting their “family members” by getting them seats to contest elections.
The Congress is going through a major crisis with ageing leaders of the state unit openly criticising the leadership of E.V.K.S. Elangovan and importance given to the latest entrant — actor Khusbhu — who in no time was promoted as an AICC spokesperson.
Congress says its goal is to establish “Kamaraj rule” — a reference to the return of Congress government in the state — but it came out of the shadows of Dravidian majors only during two elections — in 1989 and 2014 — and after tasting defeat at the hustings, it had only gone back to playing junior partner of either DMK or AIADMK.
The Congress contested alone in 1989 Assembly polls winning 29 seats, but went back to AIADMK alliance in 1991 and continued to be the junior partner of Dravidian majors till 2014 when no party was ready to align with it. After contesting the elections in 2014, the Congress has sought refuge in DMK for the May 16 elections.
Further, political analysts, feel the Congress has not taken any steps to reduce the disenchantment about it among the youth of Tamil Nadu, though much more marginal players like the BJP and Aam Aadmi Party have taken major initiatives to reach out to youth and first-time voters.
The Congress which had nearly 10 per cent vote share in 2006 has seen major upheaval in the past one decade with its vote share reducing to just 4.3 per cent in 2014 Lok Sabha elections which the party contested alone. The party’s bargaining power with alliance leaders have also reduced over the years, thanks to Congress’ factional fights and its poor outreach to the people.
While the party contested in 63 seats in the last Assembly elections, the DMK was not willing to give Congress more than 30 seats this time around, but DMDK not joining DMK front worked for the party which was allotted 41 seats.
Political observers feel the party’s 4.3 per cent vote percentage would certainly see a significant decline with TMC fighting the elections as part of DMDK-People’s Welfare Alliance, while pointing out that TMC’s votebank is same as that of the Congress.
While pointing out that Vasan may not take more than one or 1.5 per cent of Congress votes, they say even such a marginal decline would play spoilsport for Congress and reduce its vote percentage further.
They say the DMDK-PWA is likely to get around 14 to 18 per cent of votes, which would immensely benefit AIADMK and prove detrimental to Congress and DMK.
