The Indian National Congress failed to score in the Maharashtra assembly elections even as the national party contested 101 seats out of the 288 constituencies. Lack of involvement from central leaders, infighting, lack of strong leadership, not addressing the local issues and confusion of seats impacted the Indian National Congress in the Maharashtra assembly results.
“The INC focussed on the issues of the general elections which were non-relevant to Maharashtra. They did not focus on the grassroots problems of the people of Maharashtra while the BJP worked in every constituency throughout the last four months. The BJP learned its lesson and focused on minorities, Dalits and Marathas, their Ladli Behan scheme did wonders. Even inside the Congress, there was confusion, they gave a lot of importance to the Dharavi redevelopment which was focused only on Mumbai but they tried to make it a pan-Maharashtra issue. Even in the interiors, they failed to give a credible resolution to farmers issue,” said political analyst Abhay Deshpande to businessline. Experts stated that the lack of senior party leadership involvement in the election and not learning lessons from other States failed INC to succeed in Maharashtra. Further, despite the party’s strong national stance on farmer issues, it failed to impress the farmers and address their concerns in Maharashtra. “After Loksabha the INC was in overconfidence despite losing Haryana. On the other hand, BJP is in election mode 24/7 and they have a very extensive feedback review system with volunteers going on the field and submitting the results to higher-ups. In Maharashtra, the Congress was not even careful to select candidates,” said Advocate Vijay Kumar, Psephologist. In 2019, INC contested 147 seats in Maharashtra and won 44 seats in the state assembly elections. “The loss lies with the Congress as it is a national party and has a larger influence than other local parties in the influence. The party has ground-level influence across the state especially in backward Maharashtra. However, the party truly failed to understand what people wanted on the ground level and in the rural areas despite having strong powerful leaders from Vidarbha. Infighting with everyone wanting to be a CM face, the congress had a complete absence of State-level leadership in the state,” said Dr Surendra Jondhale, a political analyst.