By IANS,
New Delhi: The Congress needs to go for an image correction as far as corruption is concerned with the 2G spectrum scam being one of the main reasons for the party alliance to lose the Tamil Nadu elections, analysts said Friday.
The results of assembly elections from West Bengal, Assam, Tamil Nadu, Puducherry, and Kerala saw the Congress winning in Assam for a third consecutive time, being part of the Trinamool Congress winning combine in West Bengal, and just scraping through in Kerala. But the party, in alliance with the ruling DMK, lost majorly in Tamil Nadu and also in Puducherry.
In Assam, the Congress government was headed for its third consecutive term with 78 seats in the 126-member house. Kerala was a close call, with the Congress-led United Democratic Front scraping through with 72 seats.
In the union territory of Puducherry, the breakaway Congress AINRC and allies has got 20 seats of the 30 seats.
Analysts say though Congress was not in a very bad position, it needed to act immediately on image correction as far as corruption is concerned.
“Congress has not performed very badly. It is in the ruling alliance in Kerala and West Bengal, and has won in Assam, but Tamil Nadu is a major set back. Definitely because of the 2G spectrum the DMK-Congress alliance lost power and (AIADMK chief J.) Jaylalitha has made a point out of that,” Nisar-ul-Haq, head of the Political Science department, Jamia Millia Islamia told IANS.
“Congress needs to work on cleaning its image as far as corruption is concerned,” he said.
Tamil Nadu and West Bengal threw up the most decisive mandates, the most important since the 2009 general election. While Banerjee sailed to a historic win, ending the Left Front’s 34-year uninterrupted rule with 227 seats in the 294-member assembly, J. Jayalalithaa’s AIADMK won an equally emphatic victory over the DMK in Tamil Nadu, crossing the 200 mark with its allies in the 234-member house.
“Left has completely lost the ground. It has gone from West Bengal and also from Kerala, but the fact that the competition was so close reflects that the Congress has lost ground here as well,” said Haq, crediting Trinamool Congress’ victory to the wave of change, “globalisation, liberalisation and privatisation is the call of today”.
Agreeing that the 2G scam was a major issue in Tamil Nadu, political analyst and former professor from South Asia Institute of Heidelberg University, Germany, Paras Nath Chaudhary said the scam was the last nail in the coffin for DMK.
“The 2G scam was the last nail in the coffin. Though Jayalalitha doesn’t have a spotless background, there were numerous factors working against DMK, that includes the family politics,” says Chaudhary, adding that Congress had no reason to be happy either.
“In Kerala, they were neck and neck, lost Puducherry, and have a small role alone in West Bengal. They won Assam because there were no strong opponents,” he said.
Chaudhary said that people have stopped identifying with the Leftist ideology.
“Left ideology has lost its popularity,” he said.
However, senior political commentator N. Bhaskar Rao, said different factors were responsible for the results in every state.
“In Tamil Nadu, it is the 2G scam to a great extent, along with other factors. In West Bengal, it is the wave for change – to overthrow the Left government. Craving for peace led to the Congress victory in Assam, while in Kerala, the election mainly depended on the popularity of individual MLAs and the arty was not the main focus,” said Rao.
Haq added that though the result was not the best for Congress, the party was still emerging as the largest national party which had wide acceptance.
“Overall it is not a major setback for Congress, its secular credentials make is largely acceptable. However, this is a major set back for the Communists,” he added.