Bihar 2020: Congress has yet again stood in too many seats

Indian National Congress is at the moment the second largest party in India. However, it has presence in only some states, while in other states it has very little presence. It allies with regional parties and tries to keep up its base.

Just after Independence, Congress had ruled virtually everywhere. So during a seat sharing agreement with an ally, it always claims that at some point or the other it was very powerful in that place. It takes many seats where it currently has almost no presence. When the election results are out, the allies keep doing well, but Congress ends up doing badly.

For the 2020 elections in Bihar, Congress is part of the Mahagathbandhan (MGB). This alliance consists of Lalu Prasad's Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) which stood in 150 seats; Congress in 70 seats; Communist Party of India (Marxist- Leninist) (Liberation) ( CPI(ML) (L) ) in 19 seats; Communist Party of India (CPI) in 6 seats; and Communist Party of India (Marxist) in 4 seats.

The MGB's main rival was the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) consisting of chief minister Nitish Kumar's Janata Dal United (JD(U) ) and the central ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).

RJD won 75 seats, with a 50% strike-rate; CPI(ML)(L) had an even better strike-rate. They won 12 seats with a 63% strike-rate. The other communist parties won 2 seats each.

However, even though Congress stood in 70 seats, they won just 19 seats. Their strike-rate was just 27%. They had lost a total of 51 seats. The alliance won a total of 110 seats, just 12 short of the majority mark. The NDA won the election by just 4 seats. Had RJD stood in some of these 51 seats (in which Congress stood and lost), the MGB is likely to have won the election.

This is not the first time Congress has stood in too many seats.

Past elections with similar results:

In 2016, elections were held in Tamil Nadu. Congress had an alliance with Karunanidhi's Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK). DMK offered around 20 seats out of the total 234 seats to Congress.The local Congress leaders found that sufficient, as they knew the ground reality of the party. However, the Congress high-command insisted that they needed, "respect." Eventually they were allotted 41 seats. DMK stood in 178 seats and won 89. So their strike-rate was reasonably good at 50%. However, Congress won just 8 seats (with a 19% strike-rate). Had DMK stood in more seats they are likely to have been close to forming the government. They may have even formed it. Ten years earlier , in 2006, Congress had stood in 48 seats and won 34 of them. But the great difference was that it was ruling at the centre. Even that time, it didn't have prominent local leaders. But they had influence because there were many Tamil speaking cabinet ministers.

In the 2019 Lok Sabha elections, Congress won just 1 out of the 48 seats in Maharashtra. Its ally, Sharad Pawar's Nationalist Congress Party won 4 seats. The 288 member assembly elections were held the same year. In spite of doing worse than its ally, Congress stood in as many as 147 seats leaving only 121 seats for NCP to stand in. NCP won 54 seats with a 44% strike-rate. Congress won just 44 seats with a 29% strike-rate. They won 10 seats less than NCP in spite of standing in 26 more seats. Had NCP stood in more seats and the alliance projected an NCP chief ministerial candidate, the alliance would have won more seats. They might have even been able to form the government without allying with Shiv Sena, and instead allying with smaller parties. In Maharashtra, NCP does not have presence throughout the state (unlike Tamil Nadu where DMK does), so there are many seats where NCP would have done worse than Congress. But NCP definitely deserved many more seats in the alliance.

In the 2017 Uttar Pradesh elections, Akhilesh Yadav's Samajwadi Party (SP) allied with Congress. There is no way the alliance could have formed the government even if the seat-sharing arrangement had been different. However, if SP had stood in more seats, the alliance would have been a stronger opposition. SP stood in 298 seats and won 47 (with a 15.7% strike-rate). Congress stood in 105 seats and won just 7 (with a 6.7% strike-rate).

In Jharkhand, the JMM-Congress alliance managed to form the government. But they might have had a bigger majority if JMM had stood in even more seats. JMM stood in 43 seats and won 30; Congress stood in 31 seats and won 16; and RJD stood in 7 seats and won 1.

Taking difficult seats:

Though Congress takes many seats in alliance with regional allies, it sometimes takes difficult seats which the alliance is unlikely to win. It can then claim that it is standing in many seats, and some politicians claim its ally does not have much to lose because even they would have lost the difficult seats. However, it is always better if the party which has the most chance of winning stands in difficult seats. It happens quite often that a party unexpectedly wins.

Congress spreads the message that only if it is strong, BJP can be defeated. However, Congress being strong is not necessarily the same thing as BJP being defeated. In some places like Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan, Congress is one of the two major parties, and the other is BJP. However, in other places like Uttar Pradesh, Delhi and Bihar, Congress is not the main opposition to BJP. In places like Kerala, Telangana and Meghalaya, Congress is one of the two major parties, but BJP is nowhere in the picture (except now in Telangana). In other states like Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh and Sikkim, neither of the two parties have presence.

Rahul Gandhi stood from Wayanad in Kerala for the 2019 Lok Sabha elections. When Congress won well, it spread the impression that it had defeated BJP in the State. However, BJP would have been defeated irrespective of whether Congress won or not. For example, in Andhra Pradesh, BJP didn't even secure 1% vote-share. It was not Congress who defeated it, but YSRCP.

Congress says its main aim is to defeat BJP. However, its real aim is to grow bigger, and only at times to defeat BJP.

As for forming the government at the centre, BJP keeps saying that a single party needs to win absolute majority for a stable government. In 2004, Congress won just 145 seats. Along with all its allies, it was still 54 seats short of a majority. However, they still formed the government under Manmohan Singh, which lasted its full five-year term. And their governance is likely to have been appreciated since they won a second term with a bigger majority. Congress is not countering BJP's narrative that a single party needs absolute majority. It is instead taking advantage of this narrative. It is trying to expand its base, but is shrinking the base of its regional allies and helping BJP win elections.