Kharge asks party members to set eyes on string of electoral tests leading up to 2024 Lok Sabha polls

RAIPUR: For Congress lately successful in cornering BJP and the Modi government over issues, and mounting an elaborate public connect programme like ‘Bharat Jodo Yatra’, the elephant in the room has been the continuing absence of electoral revival post-2019, with the only aberration to the bleak run being the recent win in Himachal Pradesh.
For the 85th plenary session which got under way on Friday, the party unveiled a heavy three-day agenda which includes structural changes to the party, reconstitution of the CWC, discussion on issues ranging from economic to farmers and political . But for the 15,000 delegates gathered from every nook and corner of states, the top most concern is how would the party return to its winning ways, which has defined most of its existence over 138 years. And there isunanimity in the rank and file that the party has not witnessed the existential threat that it is faced with since the advent of the Modi government at the Centre.
Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge put the plenary session in context, when he opened the meeting of the “steering committee” by cutting through the fluff and underlining that “in the history of Congress, this Chhattisgarh plenary comes in the backdrop of elections to half a dozen states followed by Lok Sabha elections in 2024. It is a big challenge for us, as well as an opportunity”.
The state polls in coming months are a must-win for Congress, a picture made more critical by the fact that end-year contests would be in party-ruled states of Chhattisgarh and Rajasthan besides MP which it won last time, while BJP-ruled Karnataka in April-May is an arena that the party has banked on for many months to stem its post-2019 downslide. There is also the BRS-ruled Telangana which was a Congress stronghold and where BJP is trying hard to encroach on the party’s base. These polls will set the tone for 2024 when Congress hopes to give a fight to BJP.