In Lok Sabha polls 2024, Congress hopes for a repeat of 2004, stares at heartland challenge

Rahul Gandhi has walked the extra mile, while his party Congress has swallowed pride and joined a band of disparate Opposition parties to stop the Narendra Modi juggernaut and announced, perhaps for the first time, a raft of poll promises even before the election schedule was announced.

Despite these unprecedented political moves, the Congress is entering the Lok Sabha battlefield with just a flicker of hope of a repeat of the 2004 verdict.

Its grand plan to ensure that there is one Opposition candidate against the BJP in 400 plus Lok Sabha seats has not fully materialised — there will still be Opposition coalitions in several states — and the INDIA alliance has struggled to sustain its momentum after its much-hyped launch in Patna last year largely because of internal divisions and bickerings besides some high-profile exits.

The Congress is also entering the Lok Sabha campaign perhaps with a sense of deja vu.

In 2019, its campaign had two broad themes — the “chowkidar chor hai” line of attack against Prime Minister Modi over the Rafale fighter jet deal, and the ambitious promise of a minimum income guarantee to the poor, or NYAY as it was called. And now, with the party having revived NYAY, revelations about the nature of anonymous contributions to political parties through electoral bonds will form the dual core of its attack.

The grand old party has added one more layer — a relentless pitch for a caste census and the talk of representation for the OBCs, Scheduled Castes (SC) and Scheduled Tribes (ST). The Congress hopes that its OBC, tribal and Dalit gambit will have a resonance, and its welfare promises would strike a chord. The party believes there is “silent anger” brewing against the BJP government among the youth over