The tale of two states: Goa and Punjab challenge for Congress

The Congress party is fighting a battle against itself in two states, Punjab and Goa, as it prepares for the larger electoral contest of seven assembly elections in 2027. In the two states, it continues to face active factionalism as the party is trying to build a united opposition. And in both the states, apart from Uttarakhand, Himachal Pradesh and Gujarat, the party is among the first two parties going for the polls next year.

In 2022, the BJP won 20 of the 40 assembly seats in Goa, while Congress though won 12 but major chunk of it soon lost to BJP in alleged horse trading. Eight of Congress's 11 MLAs crossed over, leaving the party's legislative existence severely depleted. The leadership transition, a few months back, has also left some scars. The party replaced Amit Patkar with Girish Chodankar, which changed the internal dynamics of the party creating strong two groups, one of the former and second of the serving state unit president.

In Goa, the Congress is the largest Opposition party, but it faces another difficult task of stitching together an anti-BJP vote scattered among the AAP and other smaller parties. However, there are efforts from the Congress side to form a solid anti-BJP group, according to reports. But the Congress will be facing the same problem that it had to deal with during Lok Sabha elections when it stitched up an alliance in Delhi with the AAP and yet was fighting tooth and nail in Punjab. In national elections where the BJP had different issues to pick and diluted the impact of "friend in once place and foe in another strategy of opposition", this time in assembly elections, the opposition parties could face a pointed counter on such an alliance from the BJP.

In Punjab, Congress does not have to search for an Opposition space. It already occupies it firmly. The party won 18 assembly seats in the 2022 election, when AAP swept the state with 92 seats, trampling over other parties in the state's biggest region, Malwa, where it won 66 out of the 69 seats. Congress believes anti-incumbency against the Bhagwant Mann government could give it a way back to power.

But the same story is of Punjab. It has brought the backroom malaise of factionalism to the streets where the leaders associated with former chief minister Charanjit Singh Channi have come out on streets to protest against the state in-charge Bupesh Baghel and state unit president Amarinder Singh Raja Warring. There have been two instances where Rahul Gandhi has been part of meetings which Channi has missed and reasoned to be busy in his other political works and personal works.

Both the state elections will have fragmentation decide the result. In Goa, the fragmentation is primarily among Opposition parties. In Punjab too, it is with the BJP and other smaller parties apart from increasingly within Congress itself. In both cases, a divided political space, in Punjab mostly within Congress and in Goa with a spectrum of Opposition parties, can help the incumbent. Though both the states have generated anti-incumbency, it does not automatically become votes for the principal Opposition party.