By Abhijit Banerjee and Rohini Pande
December 30, 2015
The Congress is in shock, and understandably so. It has just been told by two of its closest allies that its support isn’t worth a handful of seats in the two largest states in India. Worse still for the Congress, the two Yadavs — canny operators both — have probably got it right. In the short term, the Rashtriya Janata Dal and Samajwadi Party stand to lose less from ‘friendly’ competition from Congress in their states than if they concede the few seats that the Congress were asking for.
Many would argue that the reason the Congress is seemingly fading to obscurity in Bihar and UP is that no major caste or religious group in the states identifies with it.
Read more here.