Is Ajay Maken the chosen one or does someone want him to be a perpetual failure?

New Delhi: Congress treasurer Ajay Maken continues to rise in the party structure despite his repeated failures.
He was last week appointed the head of the party’s screening committee, a panel that shortlists candidates for any election, for Bihar.

The appointment came as a shock to a majority of Congress leaders and workers.

Many of them started digging into Maken's past experience in the same capacity.

In 2013, Maken was named the screening committee chairperson for Rajasthan. The Congress registered its worst-ever electoral defeat in the desert state, securing just 21 of the total 200 seats. While the Congress party’s defeat was on the expected lines, given that Rajasthan for decades has been a cyclic state with no incumbent government retaining power, the drubbing was unprecedented.

He headed the screening committee for the 2022 Punjab assembly elections, and the Congress badly lost the polls. The Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) swept the polls, winning 92 of the total 117 seats. The Congress barely managed to secure 18 seats.

Poor ticket distribution and the tussle between the then chief minister Charanjit Singh Channi and then state unit chief Navjot Singh Sidhu were identified as some of the key factors for the Congress party’s disastrous performance.
Maken then headed the screening committee in Chhattisgarh for the 2023 assembly elections. The Congress was considered to be in a strong position to retain power, but the BJP snatched victory from the jaws of defeat.

On the recommendations of the Maken-led panel and the then chief minister Bhupesh Baghel, the party decided to drop 22 sitting legislators. That decision, along with the intense infighting between Baghel and TS Singh Deo, turned the tide against the Congress, which could bag just 35 of the total 90 seats. The BJP returned to power with 54 seats.

Then came the turn of Haryana in 2024. The Congress seemed set to regain power from the BJP after ten years, but the results shocked everyone.

The BJP retained power for the third term. As the head of the screening committee, Maken blindly followed the suggestions of former chief minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda as far as the selection of candidates was concerned. This, coupled with the sidelining of senior leaders such as Kumari Selja and Randeep Singh Surjewala, resulted in the defeat of the Congress.

Congress leaders are wondering how the Maken factor will play out in Bihar. Some of them even claimed that a powerful leader in the party is trying to sabotage his political career by giving him such assignments.