Former Union Minister and senior Congress leader P. Chidambaram’s on Sunday said that the party has chances of winning three times more seats in the 2019 general elections. This would take party’s tally to 144. Chidambaram’s calculation is a huge embarrassment for the Congress party which is now dreaming of winning ‘274 plus seats’. The Congress party’s senior spokesperson Anand Sharma told reporters, “The Congress mission is to remove the BJP government led by Narendra Modi from office. And our mission is not 150, our mission is 274-plus, along with like-minded parties.”
The Congress’ mission of 274 plus with allies is a copy of BJP’s mission 272+ but with a difference. Unlike the INC, the BJP’s vision was very clear that it was aiming for winning 272+ seats without the help of any allies. So, this means that even before the 2019 general elections the Congress party is accepting that as a solo party, they are not capable of going very far.
The INC President Rahul Gandhi in 2013 had said, “If India is a computer, then Congress is its default program.” However, the present abysmal condition of Congress goes on to show that now the default operating system of Indian politics is outdated and a new, advanced and upgraded operating system is rapidly replacing the old operating system of the Indian politics. The old operating system thinks that by allying with more old, outdated and rejected softwares it can defeat the new operating system. Well, it is equivalent to saying that Nokia 1100 can surpass the Iphone X in terms of features and technology.
After the no-confidence motion fiasco, the Congress party’s confidence has deteriorated but they are pretending to be confident enough to defeat the BJP in the 2019 general elections. But there is a huge difference between thinking and actually doing it. Anyone can think about anything but what actually matters is the real outcome. Its former allies have already suggested that the opposition should forget 2019 and start preparing for 2024. National Conference leader and former Jammu and Kashmir chief minister Omar Abdullah after the Uttar Pradesh state assembly election results had tweeted, “In a nutshell there is no leader today with a pan India acceptability who can take on Modi & the BJP in 2019. At this rate we might as well forget 2019 & start planning/hoping for 2024.”
The like-minded parties and former allies of the Congress party are already living with the defeatist mentality just like the Congress. It would be interesting to see how far this party and its allies would go with such a negative mentality. With this kind of mentality, only moral victory can be achieved, just like the Congress party President Rahul Gandhi is achieving since 2014 and would continue to do so in future as well.