Cong posts second worst show in Bihar's history, Rahul's 'vote chori' pitch falls flat

New Delhi, Nov 14 (PTI) The Congress on Friday posted its second worst performance in Bihar's electoral history managing to win only six of the over 50 seats it contested and losing deposits in most seats as its 'vote chori' pitch failed to make any impact on the ground.

The scale of the Congress' debacle was such that the party could manage to just finish ahead of Asaduddin Owaisi's AIMIM and Jitan Ram Manjhi's Hindustani Awam Morcha (HAM), which bagged five seats each.

The Congress tally was only better than the four seats it won in 2010, getting a vote share of only 8.75 per cent compared to the 8.17 per cent 15 years ago.

The party now has multiple challenges - keeping its flock together, curbing voices of dissent within besides reclaiming lost ground.

The results mirrored a lingering pattern of lacklustre performances by the Congress which dominated Bihar for decades, winning 100 plus seats till 1985. In 1977, the Congress won 57 seats in the wake of the Emergency.

Starting with 239 seats with a 41.38 per cent voteshare in 1952, the grand old party's graph in Bihar has been on the decline ever since.

The dominant player in Bihar's politics went down from 196 seats in 1985 to 71 in 1990 and further down to 29 and 23 in 1995 and 2000, only to touch the single digit mark in 2005.

Friday's show, however, compares to no other in terms of the grand old party's decimation with Rahul Gandhi's 'vote chori' campaign failing to make any impact on the electorate of the state that gave the ruling NDA a four-fifth majority in a repeat of 2010 charts.

The rout of the Congress was so complete that its state president Rajesh Kumar lost to NDA's HAM candidate Lalan Ram in Kutumba.

Gandhi's 'Voter Adhikar Yatra', a consistent anti-Election Commission and SIR narrative, his appeals to 'Gen Z' to "restore democracy" had no takers.

In Bihar, 40 per cent of the population is below the age of 18 and 23 per cent is between 18 and 29 years.

Among other caste, community and social bases too, the Congress failed to emerge as a party of choice.

The caste census cry that the Opposition had been giving out for sometime now was a non-issue in this poll after the NDA government announced inclusion of caste in the next census.

Intra opposition coalition contradictions marked by RJD, Congress and Left fighting each other in at least eight seats, lack of projection of unity, absence of a credible narrative that could appeal to the voters contributed to Congress' decline in the state.

What worked for the NDA was the pro-incumbency with women voters, the youth and extremely backward classes favouring it strongly, in order to counter the opposition's Muslim-Yadav combine factor.

Reminding people of 'jungle raj' under the RJD, Rs 10,000 to women under Mahila Rozgar Yojana, jobs to youth, pension to the old and speedy development of Bihar seem to have found resonance with Bihar voters in favour of NDA.

Fragmentation of votes within the RJD due to Tej Pratap Yadav contesting separately and Prashant Kishore's Jan Suraaj Party (JSP) eating into the non-NDA votes also favoured the NDA.

Lack of political understanding of Congress leaders like Krishna Allavaru, who was in-charge in Bihar, also led to the party's rout this time.

Friday's outcome reveals that the Congress has continued to falter, failing to win states one state after the other and unable to uplift alliances in which it is a partner.

Insiders said the party would have to return to the drawing board and revise its election strategy or risk losing existence.

The Bihar results will also act as a dampener for the party cadres, whose morale is already down psychologically ahead of the 2026 poll cycle.

For a few years now, the Congress has been losing to the BJP in direct fights (Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Haryana) and has remained at best a peripheral or smallest player in coalitions elsewhere such as in Jharkhand, Maharashtra and now Bihar.

With the EC having rolled out the special intensive revision of electoral rolls in other states that go to polls next year, the Congress would either have to find ways to make its "vote theft" campaign work or revise its political strategy and rework its narratives.

In 2026, it faces an emboldened BJP in a direct fight in Assam and a formidable rival in the CPI-M in Kerala.

In West Bengal and Tamil Nadu, however, the Congress remains a fringe player. PTI SKC ZMN