Opinion The Congress challenge: Talk to the BJP voter
This is its main task, along with cranking up its machine — its AICC session struck a few nuanced notes, but didn’t seize either
At Ahmedabad, of course, Congress talked about the BJP's “politics of hate” and its “capture of institutions”, attacks on minorities, the rise of “crony capitalism” and “voter fraud” in Maharashtra. 
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The Congress party met for the AICC session this week at a critical moment, against a bracing backdrop. The moment — when the Narendra Modi-led BJP in its third term in power at the Centre seems to have, through a round of state-level victories, won back the political momentum it lost after it failed to get an outright majority in the Lok Sabha polls. The backdrop — Ahmedabad in Gujarat, a state in which Congress has been out of power for three decades, where the BJP has established near-total dominance, with seven straight victories in the assembly, and after winning all seats in the 2014 and 2019 Lok Sabha polls, and in 2024 yielding to Congress only one seat. This moment in that setting called upon India’s main Opposition party to use the conclave to look within, honestly and unsparingly, and to come up with ideas that could become a plan to break its long decline and standstill. To create a new vocabulary to speak to voters who have deserted it and touch the minds and hearts of those who may be courted even though they vote for the BJP. The discussions and political resolution in Ahmedabad bear some signs of a rethink but there were too many examples of self-congratulation, too few echoes of soul-searching.
At Ahmedabad, of course, Congress talked about the BJP’s “politics of hate” and its “capture of institutions”, attacks on minorities, the rise of “crony capitalism” and “voter fraud” in Maharashtra. It also spoke about its own commitment to “social justice” and defined its “nationalism”. It reiterated its allegiance to “secularism” but also coined “national harmony” to avoid the baggage of abdications that weighs down the former term. Going by the evidence so far, however, Congress continues to duck the formidable challenges it faces. Ever since Mandal gave birth to new parties and reshaped the national mainstream in the 1990s, Congress has looked like a reluctant votary of “social justice”. It has work to do to persuade voters that it is not just making a case for the caste census to chip away at the homogenising Hindutva project of the BJP. The Congress challenge is sharpened by the fact that the party of Mandir continues to make inroads into the Mandal constituency. On nationalism, too, a plank the BJP has made its own, Congress faces an uphill task of reclamation and resuscitation. One of its toughest challenges, however, will be to rescue “secularism”, in a diverse and multi-religious democracy, from the BJP’s attempts, mostly successful, to label it appeasement of the minority. Mere semantics won’t do.
As important as the message is the machine. Congress’s challenge lies in organisational renewal, from top to the bottom. Against an opponent like the BJP, the Congress leadership needs to be much more engaged, far more agile. Its padyatra model is innovative and burnishes the leader’s image but leaves little beyond dust in its wake. The leadership cannot afford to work erratically, at will. That is not an option for a party stuck at 19-20 per cent of the vote share, and which needs to win back the voters who have, over decades, moved away from it. Even as it opposes the BJP, Congress needs to reach out across the dividing lines and strike a conversation with BJP voters. Ahmedabad only frames the long haul ahead.
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