As the election in the states of Maharashtra and Haryana nears, the principal opposition party, Congress, seems to be in complete disarray. Several leaders of the party in Maharashtra have either joined the BJP or the Shiv Sena and its top leader in Mumbai, Sanjay Nirupama, has refused to campaign for the party. The situation is worse in Haryana, where former state chief Ashok Tanwar has put in his resignation from the party itself, claiming corruption in ticket distribution. The BJP in all probability will win both the states. At the national level too, the Congress is struggling to revive itself after the poor performance in the Lok Sabha election.
After senior leader, Salman Khurshid, accused former Congress president Rahul Gandhi of “walking away” from the post of party president at a time when there should have been a postmortem of the national election defeat. Another leader, Jyotiraditya Scindia, on Wednesday called for urgent introspection. Sonia Gandhi, who is holding the charge of the party temporarily, mostly remains secluded. The Congress leaders and workers seem to be in complete disarray at the moment. The longer this continues, the more it is going to hurt the process of revival of the grand old party. For any democracy to flourish, a strong opposition is most needed. However, the Congress, along with other parties, has miserably failed in this regard. They seem to be busy in infighting, and their leaders hardly worry about the people anymore. Maybe the time has come for a new party to take the role of the principal opposition in the country. There is not much to hope for from the fading Congress, and the time for a new political entity has arrived.