onsdag 1. juni 2016

Congress: Is India's Grand Old Party in terminal decline?

Two years after a historic drubbing in general elections, the 130-year-old Congress party is showing few signs of revival. On Thursday, the nightmare continued, with the party losing Assam and Kerala in crucial state elections.Now the Congress rules in just six of India's 29 states - half of them tiny ones in the north-east - and supports a regional coalition in Bihar. Going by its performance in Tamil Nadu, it is taking a beating even as an alliance partner.

It's a vertiginous decline for a party which was on the upswing after winning two consecutive general elections in 2004 and 2009 - for the first time since 1989 - and then frittered away the gains in a haze of corruption scandals and indecision. "There has been a serious shrinkage of the Congress," says political analyst Yogendra Yadav. "It is shrinking to less than a national party." Read more