Bihar Verdict Buries Congress’s ‘Justice Politics’
LoP Rahul Gandhi during his Bihar Yatra! (Image X .com)
Congress’s caste-centric strategy collapsed in Bihar, exposing a leadership adrift from ground realities and raising questions about its value as an alliance partner.
By TRH Political Desk
New Delhi, November 15, 2025 — Congress’s crisis in Bihar is not merely electoral—it is ideological. That is the central argument of journalist Manish Anand, who says the party’s severe setback in the 2025 Bihar Assembly elections exposes a widening gap between its “politics of justice” and the social realities of a state long defined by social-justice movements.
For Congress, which has framed its national message around caste census, expanded reservations, and social equity under Rahul Gandhi’s leadership, Bihar should have been the decisive battleground. Instead, Anand notes, the mandate has been “a burial of Congress’s justice politics.”
The numbers tell the story. Congress won 27 seats in 2015, slid to 19 in 2020, and in 2025 managed just six. Even more striking is the performance of its key ally, the Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD), which—despite securing its highest-ever vote share of around 24 percent since Bihar’s bifurcation—collapsed to barely two dozen seats. Anand argues this reflects a failure of intra-alliance vote transfer and a deeper erosion of trust in Congress’s leadership.
“Why ally with a party that has no vote base?”
Anand warns that regional parties may now rethink joining hands with Congress. For them, alliance arithmetic depends on transferable vote banks and charismatic leadership—both of which Congress lacks in Bihar.
“Congress’s leadership exerts no electoral pull,” he writes. “Why should smaller parties sacrifice seats for a partner that cannot deliver votes?”
He adds that parties like the Samajwadi Party’s Akhilesh Yadav may also be questioning whether Congress brings anything to the table in future seat-sharing negotiations.
The failure of Rahul Gandhi’s social-justice strategy
According to Anand, Rahul Gandhi’s political project—built around caste census, expanding reservation caps, and a redistributive justice framework—was expected to resonate most in Bihar. Instead, the state has delivered a verdict of “disbelief and rejection.”
The core problem, Anand argues, is that Congress is mimicking regional caste-based parties without the organisational muscle, social rootedness, or lived experience that made Mandal-era politics effective.
“The party behaves like a regional outfit without being one,” he writes. “A national party cannot afford exclusionary politics. Its mandate is to speak to every class and caste.”
A leadership insulated from ground reality
Anand is sharply critical of what he calls Rahul Gandhi’s “Harvard-educated core team,” accusing it of operating in a “utopian bubble.”
“These advisers have no experience in mass politics, field mobilisation or electoral struggle,” he observes. “They impose a theoretical worldview on a party that needs ground feedback, not abstract idealism.”
He notes that Gandhi’s symbolic gestures—jumping into ponds to harvest fish or performing quick choreographed events—do not build voter trust. “These are events, not political relationships,” Anand says. “Voters respond to sustained dialogue, not photo-op intimacy.”
Exclusion politics and the backlash of silent voters
Anand says Congress’s fixation on reservation politics alienates large sections of aspirational youth who see quotas as barriers to merit. This, he argues, is producing a “politics of exclusion” in reverse—leaving many groups feeling pushed out of Congress’s message.
“When a national party promotes one section while sidelining another, the backlash is inevitable,” he writes.
A warning for Congress’s future
Anand concludes that unless Congress confronts the truth of Bihar’s message—its collapsing vote share, its leadership vacuum, and its misreading of social-justice politics—it will continue facing defeat.
“Denial will not erase reality,” he warns. “If the party does not re-evaluate its strategy, future elections too will bring only disappointment.”
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