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Patna,(BiharTimes): Unlike the last two assembly elections in Bihar and even the 2009 Lok Sabha poll the Congress is trying its level best to improve its percentage from 5-6 to much higher figure.
This notwithstanding the fact that the Ayodhya ruling may somewhat polarize the atmosphere and help the BJP at one end and the RJD at the other.
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Congress won just nine seats and got six per cent vote in October 2005 assembly election. The party was pushed down to the fifth position in terms of both tally and percentage––behind the JD(U), BJP, RJD and LJP.
In February 2005 election, wich led to the hung Assembly, it bagged 10 seats and got five per cent vote––its lowest in the history.
However, in these two elections the Congress contested only 84 and 51 seats respectively out of 243 constituencies under the seat sharing arrangement with Rashtriya Janata Dal.
In the last Lok Sabha poll it contested all 40 seats but won only two. However, its percentage of votes increased significantly. The phenomenon continued in the last September by-election for 18 seats. The Congress won two, that is equal to the BJP and just one less to the Janata Dal (United). The RJD-LJP alliance won nine out of 18.
The decline of Congress started in 1989 parliamentary and 1990 assembly elections. The ghost of Bofors and the communal holocaust in Bhagalpur started its gradual decline. The party could win only 71 seats in the House of 324 then. The Janata Dal got 122 seats but came to power on support of the Left. Lalu Yadav became the chief minister for the first time on March 10, 1990.
In 1991 Lok Sabha election the Congress won just one seat, Begusarai. That was the worst performance after 1977 when the party did not win a single seat in parliamentary election from Bihar.
In the assembly polls held in 1995, it surrendered, for the first time, its status as the main opposition party in Bihar to its arch rival the BJP. The Congress won only 29 seats with a vote share of over 16 per cent as against the BJP’s 41 seats.
In 2000 assembly election it won 23 seats in the House of 324 and polled 11 per cent votes. But later the party joined the Rabri Devi government and all the MLAs became minister. Its 231 candidates forfeited their security deposits. The BJP then won 67 seats.
It needs to be recalled that in the 1977 assembly election the Congress won 57 seats and polled 23.5 per cent votes as against the then Janata Party 214 and 42.6 per cent votes.
However, in the 1980 assembly polls it bounced back to win 169 seats. This was followed by the 1985 assembly election in which it won 196 seats. And five years later in 1990 it was down in the dump with just 71 seats.
The highest number of seats won by the Congress was 239 in 1952 and 210 in 1957 while for the non-Congress party the best performance was for the post-Emergency Janata Party which won 214 seats.
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