When Harish Rawat, the Congress's big man in Uttarakhand, should have been campaigning full throttle in his hill state, he was busy cleaning the mess within the party in Punjab. As counting takes place for Assembly Elections 2022, it turns out the party has been decimated in both states even though there was said to be a sense of anti-incumbency in Uttarakhand. Not just that, Congress does not seem to be doing well in Goa and has been left struggling with just about 3-4 seats in Uttar Pradesh.

This has been the scene within Congress for a while now. The party has been lost some of its most prominent leaders over the past three years including Jyotiraditya Scindia, Captain Amarinder Singh, Ashwani Kumar and Jitin Prasada. Assembly Election Results 2022 Live News Updates: Early Trends In; BJP Leads in UP, Uttarakhand, Goa, Manipur, AAP in Punjab.

However, election after election, resignation after resignation, one expects that India's grand old party will admit something is going wrong and introspect. However, that doesn't happen.

Another reason is that Congress's identification remains the Gandhis and the Gandhis refuse to step aside for seasoned politicians to take over. As several political pundits have put it, most seasoned politicians have quit the party not for ideological reasons, but for personal reasons. The party continues to pit Rahul Gandhi against Prime Minister Narendra Modi. However, the ground realities are completely different.

If the results of Assembly Elections 2022 really are a semi-final before the Lok Sabha Elections 2024, one can safely say Congress is in trouble. It is struggling even in states where the ruling party has been struggling, yet winning. The party has little time to get its act together and prepare for 2024 at a time when larger alternatives like the Aam Aadmi Party are rising and how and the BJP continues its winning bandwagon.

(The above story first appeared on LatestLY on Mar 10, 2022 12:10 PM IST. For more news and updates on politics, world, sports, entertainment and lifestyle, log on to our website latestly.com).