Senior Congress figure Karti Chidambaram has broken ranks by listing five distinct reasons for the party’s collapse, challenging the dominant “vote-theft” narrative some in the party continue to push. He underlined what he called a failure to engage new voter segments, a collapse in grassroots mobilisation, inconsistent messaging, and an alliance structure that lacked clarity and coherence.
At the same time, another senior leader, Shashi Tharoor, publicly expressed discomfort with the party’s role in the ‘Grand Alliance’, saying he was not even invited to campaign in Bihar and questioning the notion that the Congress was a senior partner in the bloc. His remarks highlight the disconnect between the central leadership and state-level cadres. Meanwhile, the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party, which dominated the election with its allied coalition, has accused the Congress of avoiding serious introspection, instead relying on institutional complaints as scapegoats for its failure.
Analysts point to several interlocking causes behind the party’s poor showing. One key issue was the campaign’s emphasis on electoral malpractice — namely the slogan “vote chori” — which insiders say failed to resonate with voters focused more on jobs, inflation and development. The opposition bloc’s seat-sharing arrangement also appeared haphazard, generating confusion among supporters and reducing vote-transfer efficiencies. Many candidates fielded by the Congress also had prior affiliations with its rivals, raising questions among voters about ideological consistency and hurt the party’s credibility.
Further complications emerged from shifting social-coalition strategies. The Congress attempted to pivot toward backward and extremely backward classes, but ended up alienating sections of its traditional base without successfully winning over the targeted groups. The rival coalition’s strategy included a newly announced women-entrepreneur scheme that delivered immediate financial benefits, giving it a tangible message on the ground that the opposition struggled to match.
Within the party, the rift centres on whether blame lies with external factors — such as alleged manipulation of electoral rolls and the alliance partner’s dominance — or with the internal strategic failure to adapt to Bihar’s evolving electorate. Karti Chidambaram’s critique suggests the Congress ignored feedback from state-level leaders that the vote-theft campaign lacked traction and that the leadership was slow to reframe the narrative toward bread-and-butter issues. His intervention underlines a broader impatience in the party’s rank-and-file with what is seen as over-centralised decision-making and insufficient responsiveness at the local level.
Tharoor’s comments about being sidelined and the party’s diminished role in its own coalition add further strain. Sources within the party say many state-level workers felt disconnected from the campaign apparatus and from key decision-making. One summoned image is of high-profile rallies that failed to convert into actual votes due to weak booth-level mobilisation, a lack of follow-through, and a strategy that over-relied on the symbolic rather than the practical.