The polling for the Congress presidential election will be held on October 17, 2022, a move by the party to reorganise itself after a long time. Meanwhile, the Bharat Jodo Yatra, the march undertaken by Congress leader Rahul Gandhi, is close to completing a month. Through the 3,570-km and 150-day-long foot march publicised as the Congress party’s biggest mass contact programme in recent times, the party hopes to resuscitate its fortunes.
Since 2014, the Indian National Congress (INC) has been facing a sharp decline in seats won in Lok Sabha elections. While it won only 44 seats in the 2014 Lok Sabha elections, the numbers marginally increased to 52 in 2019. Coincidentally, it has lost power in various States where it was a dominant force previously. It has suffered an erosion in its ranks with party members leaving the party. Its support base has also narrowed as vote share has dropped.
Chart 1 shows the vote share and seats won by the Indian National Congress in the Lok Sabha elections between the first General elections in 1951 after the country attained Independence, and 2019. Between 1951 and 1984, with an exception of 1977, the INC won close to or more than 300 seats consistently, with a vote share higher than 30%. While the vote share decreased between 1989 and 2009, they managed to win more than 100 seats in every general election during this period. In contrast, in 2014 and 2019, the seats won decreased drastically, with a vote share of less than 20%, indicating a decline in the party’s performance as a national party.
