Former Union minister Ashwini Kumar who quit the Congress Party in the run-up to the just-concluded Assembly elections appeared on various television shows on Thursday as poll results were pouring in to twist the knife, albeit in a civilised manner, into his former party. “It’s a rag-tag party which has already become irrelevant given its dependence on one family.”

Objectively, there are many who would agree with Mr Kumar. Those who don’t, however, point out that there are still approximately 200 Lok Sabha seats across India where the Congress Party and Bharatiya Janata Party are in a direct electoral contest, so the former can’t be written off. But the fact is that the BJP’s success rate against the Congress in General Elections over nearly a decade in these 200- odd seats has been over 80 per cent, which implies a no-contest, really. This, in turn, means the ruling party begins with a massive advantage in the battle of the hustings going into the 2024 Lok Sabha poll.

Other Opposition parties which have not provided the BJP such walkovers including regional behemoths such as the Trinamool Congress are getting increasingly restive at what they see as the irreversible decline of the Congress. West Bengal minister Firhad Hakim and Trinamool Congress spokesperson Kunal Ghosh both taunted the Congress as it failed to capitalise on anti-incumbency in Uttarakhand, Goa, and Manipur, self-destructed in Punjab, and consolidated its position as a political non-entity in Uttar Pradesh.

“Congress has failed to take on the BJP nationally… It should merge with the Trinamool Congress under the leadership of Ms Mamata Banerjee who is the only one who can defeat the BJP,” said Mr Hakim. He added, seemingly bewildered, that he couldn’t understand “why such an old party like the Congress is disappearing”.

Mr Ghosh echoed his party colleague: “The Congress cannot fight a force like the BJP.” And the party mouthpiece Jago Bangla has been calling out the Congress for being “confined to Twitter” for a while now. The irony of a regional party which has had no significant electoral success in its forays outside Bengal taking pot-shots at a national party which still has close to 20 per cent of the national vote is not lost on anyone.

But the Congress would do well not to shoot the messenger as its senior leader Mr Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury attempted to do when he went off halfcock in response to the provocations, advising the Trinamool Congress to merge with the Congress instead and terming it the “BJP’s biggest agent”.

For any national alternative to the ruling dispensation to take shape over the next two years ~ and that by no means is a certainty given the internecine feuds within the Opposition ~ the Congress must focus exclusively on winning at least a moderate number of seats in Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Himachal Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Kerala, Gujarat, Goa, Haryana and Punjab where it may still have a presence.

It must then humbly accept the crumbs offered to it, if any, by strong regional players in Maharashtra, Bihar, West Bengal, Tamil Nadu, Jharkhand, Delhi and the North-Eastern states. But is it listening?