If exit polls prove right, dark days ahead for Congress

There is little for the Congress party to cheer about as far as the exit polls of the states that recently went to polls are concerned. If the exit polls turn out to be correct, then the Congress party stands to lose both Assam and Kerala and will also end up on the losing side in West Bengal. Of the lot, the loss of Assam will hurt the grand old party more, because it's pitted directly against the BJP in the state. Kerala has a history of voting out governments every five years, hence that is likely to hurt less.

The Congress will be hoping that the exits polls turn out to be as wide off the mark as they were in the case of Bihar in 2015, but if that does not happen, the results will prove to be a major setback in the party's attempt to stage a comeback. It would mean that its winless streak since 2014 continues. The Congress party is yet to win a single election since its drubbing of 2014.

True it was on the winning side in Bihar, but that was also because it was a part of the mahagathbandhan with the JD-U and the RJD. On its own, the party is yet to win a state, since its historic loss in the last Lok Sabha polls.

The exit poll results, if true, will also severely limit the party's ability to play a decisive role in the presidential and vice-presidential elections due in the summer of 2017. Additionally, it will also impact the party's strength in the Rajya Sabha. The Congress party's influence in geographical terms will have shrunk further with the party, as will the number of states where it is in power. Apart from Karnataka, Himachal Pradesh and Uttarakhand, the only states that it will be left with are three Northeastern states.

This will also raise a question mark over whether the Congress party can be the axis around a potential anti-Modi front that can evolve come 2019. While it's true that most of the regional parties too were decimated in the 2014 Lok Sabha polls, some of them have begun to regain lost ground.

The JD-U and RJD decimated the BJP in Bihar, Kejriwal did the same in Delhi, and Karunanidhi looks likely to hold his own in Tamil Nadu and Mamata Banerjee in West Bengal. What should worry the Congress party's political managers is that it is the only one which is still struggling to recover from its defeat in the last Lok Sabha elections.

The Congress leadership will come under greater pressure in the coming years as it heads into polls in Punjab and Uttar Pradesh. In Punjab, it has the AAP breathing down its neck, and unless it can get its act together in double quick time, Modi and Amit Shah might actually begin to believe that their dream of a Congress-mukt Bharat is nearing realisation. However, if Tarun Gogoi does manage to win a record fourth term, it will certainly give the party and its leadership some breathing space.

In addition to winning Assam, the results of Kerala and West Bengal will be of particular interest to the BJP. In both the states, the BJP's fight is more about establishing a foundation to build on for the future and less about government formation.

The party did well for itself in the Lok Sabha elections. For the first time, the BJP won 11 per cent of the popular vote in Kerala, a state in which it has struggled to make its presence felt all along. However, if it manages to open its account and win a couple of seats, its political managers will be tempted to feel they have established their foothold in yet another south Indian state after Karnataka.