Congress At Zero In Bengal, Was The Second-Largest Party In 2016

Congress at zero in Bengal, was the second-largest party after the 2016 elections with 44 MLAs in the assembly.

With the victory of the ruling TMC in the Bengal bypolls, Congress insiders say the biggest loss has been to their party, which has formally replaced the BJP, which is now the main opposition

This makes Bengal the third-largest state, after Uttar Pradesh and Bihar, where the Congress is losing its presence.

Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee secured 84,709 votes, decisively defeating BJP’s Priyanka Tibrewal who secured 26,350 votes in the Bhawanipur by-election.

While Shreejib Biswas of the Communist Party of India-Marxist managed to secure only 4,201 votes.

The Trinamool has also registered bumper victories in Jangipur and Shamsherganj assembly seats in Murshidabad district, which were traditionally Congress strongholds.

The Congress, which did not contest the by-poll from Bhawanipur this time, was the second-largest party in the assembly after the 2016 elections with 44 MLAs.

Congress at zero in Bengal: Does not have a single MLA from the state.

There are only two Lok Sabha and one Rajya Sabha MP. The party will indeed have to start afresh, as more and more leaders are moving towards the Trinamool.

On the other hand, in Uttar Pradesh, the Congress party has only one Lok Sabha MP and out of the seven MLAs elected in 2017, two have quit the party.

In Bihar too, Congress has one Lok Sabha seat and has 19 MLAs. The Congress’s position is unstable for 162 Lok Sabha seats (UP 80, Bengal 42, and Bihar 40) in these states.

In all these states, regional parties – SP/BSP in UP, RJD in Bihar and now Trinamool in Bengal have pushed the Congress into the fringes.

Experts say that if the party wants to make a mark in the 2024 general elections, then it will have to change its strategy.