The next point of interest will be to see whether Sarma is able to cooperate with the equally ambitious Sarbananda Sonowal, who is expected to be the chief minister. But that is in the future. For the present, the Congress’s setbacks in Assam, West Bengal and Kerala cannot but be disheartening for the 131-year-old party which hasn’t heard much good news since the defeats in four assembly elections in 2013 and then the crushing blow it received in the 2014 general election. As it goes down, the question whether the Congress’s pathetic dependence on a feudal-minded, unimaginative family is responsible for its plight will be raised again. The Congress can draw some solace from its success in the recent Delhi municipal elections where it won five seats along with the Aam Admi Party (AAP) while the BJP won three. The Congress apparently gained from the growing public disillusionment with the AAP’s failure to live up to its extravagant promises.

The outcome also showed that while the BJP may have gained in the distant north-east, its position remains vulnerable near the home base, which can raise doubts about its prospects in next year’s U.P. and Punjab elections. For the time being, however, the BJP can bask in the sunshine of its entry into a major north-eastern state, which will dissipate to some extent the gloom caused by last year’s Delhi and Bihar results.

Except for the outcome in Assam, the other results are on expected lines although Mamata Banerjee and the DMK have done much better than what was expected. Evidently, the Sharada-Narada scams, the flyover collapse, the lawlessness of the cadres, the lack of industrial development have done little damage to Mamata Banerjee’s popularity. Nor has the disdain which the urban middle class and the intelligentsia in West Bengal have for her unsophisticated ways.

However, it is also true that a weak opposition helped her. The Left is yet to recover from its three decades of stifling Stalinist rule and the trade union-induced stagnation of the industrial sector which Buddhadev Bhattacharjee tried to rectify in the final years of his reign. The Left’s new partner, the Congress, was not of much help either to the comrades or to itself as the party does not have a credible leadership after the likes of Saugata Roy and Subrata Mukherjee switched to Trinamool Congress while Priya Ranjan Das Munshi remains in a vegetative state in hospital. It was, therefore, an easy victory for the proponent of “Ma, Mati, Manush”.

Like Didi in West Bengal, Amma in Tamil Nadu has proved her resilience, especially after doubts were voiced about her prospects after her administration failed to tackle the grave situation caused by last winter’s rains in Chennai. But Jayalalitha, too, was helped by a weak opposition. It would have been a miracle if the DMK, led by a 92-year-old M. Karunanidhi, would have been able to win a sixth term as chief minister. Tainted by allegations of corruption over the years, the DMK also suffers from the sibling rivalry of Karunanidhi’s two sons. Although Jayalalitha’s reputation is not lily white, she is evidently still seen by the common man as the best of a bad bargain. However, it is because she is not an automatic choice that the DMK was presumed to be the winner and ultimately put up a reasonably good show given its condition.

The Left Democratic Front (LDF) in Kerala, however, was an automatic choice if only because the state tends to alternate between the LDF and the Congress-led United Democratic Front (UDF). The latter’s position was weakened this time by the allegations of Chief Minister Oommen Chandy’s involvement in the solar panel scam and the controversy over licences for bars, for which the finance minister K.M. Mani had to resign.

The Left’s return to power in Kerala will assuage the hurt of its defeat in West Bengal. The Left now has at least two states under its belt – Kerala and Tripura – but the Congress appears to be on a weak wicket in nearly all the states where it is in power, including Karnataka. Its loss of Assam, therefore, and failure to challenge Mamata Banerjee in West Bengal are unlikely to be compensated by its success in the relatively unimportant Union territory of Puduchery. (IPA Service)