Kamal Ghorui
NEW DELHI: Nearly 50 years have passed since the Congress party’s Indira Gandhi era, when stalwart Siddhartha Shankar Ray helmed West Bengal as chief minister. His tenure ended in 1977, giving way to a sweeping communist surge led by veteran Marxist Jyoti Basu, who would become the state’s longest-serving chief minister.The decades of Left dominance systematically eroded the Congress’s influence. The party of the iconic Bidhan Chandra Roy was pushed so far to the margins that it now struggles to project itself even as a credible third force.The Left’s long hegemony was eventually shattered by Mamata Banerjee. Her political ascent relegated the communist brigade to the sidelines, but in the most recent elections, it was the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) that emerged as the primary challenger to her Trinamool Congress (TMC) in last elections that took place in 2021. Amidst these seismic shifts, the Congress’s footprint remains a shadow of its former self as the next assembly polls approach.The decline is stark when compared to 1972, when the Congress secured a landslide victory with over 200 seats and nearly half the total vote share. However, following the rise of the CPM-led Left Front under Jyoti Basu, the party began a long retreat from the center of power.
In the 1977 elections, the grand old party suffered a crushing defeat, eclipsed by the CPM wave. This collapse was fuelled in part by the backlash against Indira Gandhi’s Emergency, which also led to the Congress’s first-ever defeat in Centre, losing general election that same year. By 1977, the party had lost more than half the vote share it held in 1972. It never returned to a commanding position.While Congress remained a relevant opposition force for years, the turn of the millennium saw its political space seized by Mamata Banerjee. Having broken away to form the Trinamool Congress in 1998 under the “Jora Ghas Phul” symbol, Banerjee achieved power within 15 years, filling the vacuum left by the declining Left and a stagnating Congress.In many ways, the TMC, an offspring of the Congress — managed to ascend to the top while its parent organisation languished. Even as national leadership transitioned from Indira to Rahul Gandhi, West Bengal’s electorate showed little interest in returning to the Congress fold.The 2021 elections marked a final turning point. The BJP surged to 77 seats, becoming the principal opposition. While the BJP could not unseat Mamata Banerjee, its rise dealt a devastating blow to the Congress, which failed to win a single seat, cementing its position as a distant third.Now, facing an uphill battle for relevance, the Congress is preparing to fight back. As the state gears up for elections across 294 seats, the party hopes to transition from a faded memory to a renewed political force in a state where the results will define the next chapter of Bengal.
