Ousted by Jyoti Basu, overshadowed by Mamata, crushed by the BJP: Congress spends 50 years in exile in West Bengal
New Delhi: Congress party has been in power for nearly 50 years indira gandhi During that era, stalwart Siddhartha Shankar Ray was the Chief Minister of West Bengal. His tenure ended in 1977 and was replaced by an all-out communist wave led by veteran Marxist Jyoti Basu, who went on to become the state’s longest-serving chief minister.Decades of left-wing rule have systematically weakened the Congress party’s influence. The party of iconic Bidhan Chandra Roy has been pushed to the margins and is now struggling even to establish itself as a credible third force.
The left’s long hegemony is finally broken Mamata Banerjee. Her political rise has marginalized the communist camp, but the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) emerged as the main challenger to her Trinamool Congress (TMC) in the last elections held in 2021. Amid these seismic changes, as the next assembly polls approach, the footprint of the Congress remains a shadow of its former self.The decline is stark from 1972, when the Congress won a landslide victory with more than 200 seats and nearly half the vote share. However, with the rise of the CPM-led Left Front under Jyoti Basu, the party began a long retreat from the center of power.
In the 1977 election, this great old party suffered a disastrous defeat and was eclipsed by the wave of the CPM. This collapse was partly caused by the backlash against Indira Gandhi’s Emergency, which also led to the Congress’s first defeat in the central region and its defeat in the general election that same year. By 1977, the party had lost more than half of the 1972 vote and never returned to dominance.Although the Congress party had been a significant opposition force for many years, at the turn of the century its political space was occupied by Mamata Banerjee. In 1998, Banerjee broke away to form the Trinamool Congress under the banner of ‘Jora Ghas Phul’ and came to power within 15 years, filling the vacuum left by the declining Left and stagnant Congress.In many ways, the TMC has managed to rise to the top while the Congress, which is more than a century old, has languished. Voters in West Bengal have shown no interest in returning to the Congress even as the state leadership transitions from Indira to Rahul Gandhi.
polling
Do you think the Congress can regain its influence in West Bengal politics?
The 2021 elections mark the final turning point. The Bharatiya Janata Party soared to 77 seats and became the main opposition party. While the BJP was unable to displace Mamata Banerjee, its rise was a devastating blow to the Congress party, which failed to win a single seat, cementing its position as a distant third.Now, facing an uphill battle for relevance, Congress is preparing to fight back. As the state prepares for elections to 294 seats, the party hopes to transform from a fading memory into a new political force, the outcome of which will determine Bengal’s next chapter.
