Last week's election results delivered another blow to the Congress party.
The dismal Congress show in Bihar clearly cost the Mahagathbandan victory. The party won just 19 of the 70 seats it contested.
Congress candidates also lost most of the by-elections in Madhya Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh and Gujarat, losing its deposit in a couple of seats.
Defeat and debacle makes no difference to the ma-beta-beta sarkar in the Congress, who seem resistant to any change in the party's leadership or working style.
Shockingly, even as the Congress demanded as many as 70 seats -- from the 41 it contested in 2015 -- from the Rashtriya Janata Dal-led Mahagathbandan, Congress leader Rahul Gandhi preferred to holiday at his sister's new home in Himachal Pradesh to campaigning as aggressively as the RJD's Tejashwi Yadav had done.
When Congress leader Kapil Sibal -- one of the 23 signatories of a letter in August to interim party President Sonia Gandhi demanding sweeping changes in the party -- again spoke up after the Bihar loss, he swiftly came under attack from the ma-beta-beta regime's loyalists.
Dominic Xavier wonders if the Congress will ever see happy days again.
Feature Presentation: Aslam Hunani/Rediff.com
