CHENNAI: From being the party that laid the foundation of post Independence governance in Tamil Nadu to becoming a junior partner struggling to retain its relevance, the Congress party’s journey in the State reflects a steady decline in political influence, organisational strength, and vote share, despite bravado displayed by a section of the party leaders, especially ahead of polls and seat-sharing talks.
Recent data has shown a reduced enthusiasm among party cadres to contest the upcoming Assembly elections.
Post-1967, the Grand Old Party didn't find a way to reverse the loss of ground, even when the giant slayer Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) lost to the MGR-led AIADMK regime.
The Congress was, at best, playing second fiddle through its alliance with the Dravidian rivals AIADMK and the DMK. At the national level, the DMK has benefited from its alliance with the Congress when the latter has been in power at the Centre, but the GOP's base has been dwindling in Tamil Nadu.
In the 2011 Assembly elections, the Congress contested 63 seats but won only five, securing a statewide vote share of 9.3 per cent, prompting its Dravidian allies to see it as a burden. Although the election was heavily influenced by the 2G spectrum case, which sulled the image of the DMK, a constituent of the UPA government in the Centre, Congress still emerged as the third-largest party in terms of vote share, behind the AIADMK and the DMK.
In the 2016 Assembly elections, it contested in 41 seats, won eight, and secured a vote share of 6.5 per cent. By the 2021 Assembly elections, the Congress was forced to contest only 25 seats and won 18 constituencies, a higher conversion rate than in previous polls.
However, the party’s State-wide vote share fell further, with the Congress securing just 4.3 per cent of the total votes in Tamil Nadu, obviously due to contesting in less number of seats. In the last 6 decades after 1967, only a couple of times did Congress fight polls on its own, riding piggyback on one of the Dravidian majors in all other cases.
The Congress, being a national party that had its sway over the central government till the BJP upset it in 2014, should have at least retained its voter share in the Lok Sabha polls in the State. That's also not so.
In the 2009 Lok Sabha elections, the Congress secured around 15 per cent of the vote share in Tamil Nadu. This declined to 12.9 per cent in the 2019 elections and further dropped to 10.5 per cent in the 2024 Lok Sabha elections.
This decline is despite Congress getting a larger share of Lok Sabha seats from alliance partners than in the Assembly polls.
Adding to these concerns is the party’s organisational condition. Over the past two months, the Congress has been distributing application forms to aspirants seeking to contest the 2026 Assembly elections.
Unlike the previous occasion, when aspirants had to pay Rs 2,500 to obtain an application form, this time the forms were distributed free of cost. This move was aimed at encouraging wider participation, particularly among young party members.
However, fewer application forms were collected compared to the previous election. During the 2021 Assembly elections, 7,500 application forms were distributed, as announced by the then Tamil Nadu Congress Committee (TNCC) president KS Alagiri. In contrast, the current TNCC president, Selvaperunthagai, recently informed reporters that only 6,000 application forms had been received.
Speaking on this issue, political scientist and academic Dr Sunil Kumar told DT Next, “When Rahul Gandhi served as the president of the Youth Congress, there were intense efforts across the country to attract large numbers of young people into the party'.
That momentum, he said, is no longer visible. He recalled that during the 2004–2009 period, Yuvaraj, then president of the Tamil Nadu Youth Congress, succeeded in mobilising and enrolling a significant number of young members. At present, however, the Youth Congress does not appear to be functioning with the same vigour.
Sunil Kumar further pointed out that after 2011, the Congress party suffered serious reputational damage among the youth and the general public in Tamil Nadu due to the 2G spectrum case, even though the allegations were later proved wrong, and the Sri Lankan Tamil (Tamil Eelam) issue.
Nevertheless, he acknowledged that the newly appointed TNCC president, Selvaperunthagai, has been making sincere efforts to revive and restructure the party. At the same time, he remarked that the nine Congress MPs from Tamil Nadu are not significantly active at the grassroots level. He also noted that while the Congress was the third-largest political party in Tamil Nadu in 1996, that position has been completely reversed over the last 25 years.