India Assembly elections 2017- UP,Punjab,Uttarakhand,Manipur,Goa,HP,Gujarat

[OSR stands with Israel]

i know i am not nearly interested enough in indian politics between elections but seeing the lvel of decline of the INC is just breathtaking.

Yes, the fall for INC from 2009-now is quite large and mostly to the benefit of the BJP.  But we should not overstate it.  INC and BJP always overperform in LS elections while BSP and SP always overperform in Assembly elections.   This makes sense since INC and BJP are national parties while BSP and SP are UP regional parties (in de facto terms.) So when INC+ gets 19% in the 2009 LS election it was always not realistic to expect it to win 19% in an  UP assembly election.  In 2002 and 2007 INC only got around 9% in UP Assembly elections.  Now it is polling around 6%-8% which is bad but not that terrible relative to 2002 and 2007.  Remember in 1998 LS election during the INC nadir it only won ~6% of the vote.  Taken in that context INC is weaker than it ever was since 1999 but is still a bit better than 1998.

But the macro story is that since 2013 BJP has taken over as the natural party of governance in India and natural party to maintain national unity from INC.  INC has to either reverse this or  become a large regional party in several states with alliance with other regional forces to counter BJP, a role BJP played in the 1990s against INC.

why do the BJP and INC not do so well in state wide elections as national election but the tories and labour in uk tend to do well in both(except Scotland of course)

[OSR stands with Israel]

Congress Party is becoming Labour of the 1980s and now

[OSR stands with Israel]

On Uttarakhand seat, Lohaghat, is most likely headed for a re-count.  It ended up being

BJP     26468   47.9%
INC     26320   47.6%

For now it counts as a BJP win but recount might yield a different result.

would you say that the INC is more incomeptent then Corybn's Labour Party

[OSR stands with Israel]

would you say that the INC is more incomeptent then Corybn's Labour Party

I would say no Its main incompetence is that it did not allow local INC leaders to rise up to become mass leaders but instead insist on  the charisma of the apex leadership (AKA the Gandhi family) to fetch the votes.  When that worked, like Nehru, Indira, Rajiv pre-1989, and recently Sonia, it gave good results.  Main problem is that it worked too well over the last few decades so when their main leader, Rahul, does not come off as a mass leader, it gets beaten by the BJP which with Modi copied the old INC formula. 

When one asks voters in UP and Uttarakhand who they will vote say, they often say Modi and not BJP.  The BJP organization in many ways has not recovered from the 1999-2012 period of decline but for now Modi is making up for it.  Just like by the late 1960s the INC machine in UP was quickly falling into decline but still managed to win in the early 1970s due to Indira Gandhi.

All things equal INC is still fairly united even if faction ridden at the local level.  It also capable of making some good decisions, like letting Punjab INC run its campaign without interference from INC high command.  Despite defeats the INC organization is still mainly united in backing Rahul Gandhi as opposed to the situation in the UK LAB party where the PLP seems to despise Corybn.

so would you say its more like the Republicans in the 1980s who as a party still hadnt recovered from the 1968-1980 days but they won mainly cause of Reagan popularity more then the popularity of the party itself.

[OSR stands with Israel]

I think these results are great


BJP still wins but with a reduced majority which should send a message to Modi that he needs to start to deliver more on his promises instead of just being a non congress pm.