Task cut out for RJD; Congress stares at existential crisis

On Friday morning, Prime Minister Narendra Modi posted on social media his tributes to India’s first Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru on his birth anniversary, and by evening predicted that the Congress is headed for a split.

- ARCHIS MOHAN

In the 2025 Bihar Assembly polls, the Congress won six seats of the 61 it contested in alliance with the Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) and others, with 8.73 percent vote share — its second worst performance in the state since 1951. In the 2010 Bihar Assembly polls, the Congress fielded candidates on all the 243 seats, winning just four with 8.37 per cent vote share.

In the run-up to the Bihar Assembly polls, Congress leader Rahul Gandhi led a “Voter Adhikar Yatra”, accusing the Election Commission (EC) of “vote theft”. A day before the polling for the first phase of Bihar polls on November 6, Gandhi urged “Gen Z” to “restore democracy”. As much as 60 per cent of Bihar’s population is below 29 years of age. But as Modi pointed out in his victory speech at the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) headquarters, the youth rejected the Congress’ allegations and voted for “purification” of electoral rolls.

The Congress’ number of wins in the 2025 Bihar polls was only one better than such fringe parties as the Asaduddin Owaisi’s AIMIM and Jitan Ram Manjhi’s Hindustani Awam Morcha (HAM), both of which bagged five seats each. It had the AIMIM posting on X that if not for the Congress candidates eating into its vote share, it could have won as many as 15 seats.