'Write the Congress's obit at your own peril'

Senior Congress leader Digvijay Singh addresses a press conference after his defeat in the Lok Sabha elections, in Bhopal. He lost to Sadhvi Pragya. Pic/PTI

Following not just a defeat but an absolute decimation of the 'grand old party' in the current 2019 elections, Sanjay Jha, national spokesperson for the Congress insisted, "There are no permanent winners or losers in politics."

As Congress resignations fell like leaves in autumn, Jha qualified that with, "To say that we are extremely disappointed with the election results will be an understatement. Frankly, we remained optimistic ever since our victories in Rajasthan, Chhattisgarh and Madhya Pradesh, and saw the agrarian crisis, record job losses, Rafale corruption and sub-standard governance as totally indefensible. The results have surprised us. Clearly, the famous line 'It's The Economy, stupid' did not apply to this election."

Resilience

Jha though cautioned, "we will bounce back. Our immediate focus will have to be Maharashtra and Haryana where state elections are due later this year. Anyone writing the obituary of the Congress party does so at their own peril. The election was an ideological war; and ultimately Mahatma Gandhi will trump Nathuram Godse."

Sadhvi

When it is about Gandhi-Godse, the inevitable reference to Sadhvi Pragya came in. Jha said, "It is a monumental shame that someone who believes Godse was a patriot will now be a member of the august House of Parliament. The BJP won this election on a combination of three factors: hyper-nationalism post Pulwama, aggressive Hindutva politics and marketing fear, by dubiously positioning the Congress as being soft on terror. I guess we did not counterattack these false charges convincingly enough."

Navjyot Sidhu

When asked though as a counter to the Sadhvi charge, whether it was not shameful that the Congress party has a member who hugged the Pak army chief, Navjyot Singh Sidhu's jhappi and yaari, which has even irked Punjab CM Capt Amarinder Singh, Jha did not answer. When asked whether it was not Hindutva but about Hindus. Never talking about them, or factoring them in spelt the Congress's undoing, Jha insisted that the, "Congress is a secular party and does not have to answer to BJP's communal barbs".

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