Pushed out by Jyoti Basu, eclipsed by Mamata, crushed by BJP: Congress’ 50-year exile in West Bengal | India News
New Delhi: Almost 50 years of the Congress party have passed Indira Gandhi During that era, when the strong-willed Siddhartha Shankar Roy led as the Chief Minister of West Bengal. His tenure ended in 1977, giving way to a massive communist uprising led by veteran Marxist Jyoti Bose, who would become the state’s longest-serving chief minister.Decades of Left dominance systematically eroded Congress’ influence. The iconic Bidhan Chandra Roy’s party was so marginalized that it is now struggling to project itself as a credible third force.
The left’s long hegemony was finally broken Mamata Banerjee. His political rise sidelined the communist brigade, but in recent elections, it was the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) that emerged as the primary challenger to his Trinamool Congress (TMC) in the last elections to be held in 2021. Amid this earthquake, the Congress footprint remains a shadow of its former self as the next assembly elections approach.The decline is stark compared to 1972 when the Congress won a landslide victory with over 200 seats and almost half of the total vote share. However, after the rise of the CPM-led Left Front led by 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, swept by the CPM wave. The decline was partly fueled by the backlash against Indira Gandhi’s Emergency, which led to Congress’s first defeat at the Centre, losing the general election the same year. By 1977, the party had lost more than half of its votes in 1972. It never regained its commanding position.Although the Congress was a relevant opposition force for years, the turn of the millennium saw Mamata Banerjee usurp its political space. Breaking away to form the Trinamool Congress under the “Zora Ghas Phool” symbol in 1998, Banerjee came to power within 15 years, filling the void left by a declining Left and a stagnant Congress.In many ways, the TMC managed to rise to the top while the more than century-old Congress languished. Even after the national leadership shifted from Indira to Rahul Gandhi, West Bengal voters showed little interest in returning to the Congress fold.
poll
Do you believe that Congress can regain its relevance in West Bengal politics?
The 2021 elections mark a final turning point. BJP became the main opposition party with 77 seats. Although the BJP could not unseat Mamata Banerjee, her rise dealt a devastating blow to the Congress, which failed to win a single seat and strengthened its position in a distant third place.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 transform from a faded memory to a new political force in a state where results will define Bengal’s next chapter.
