Has Congress become the new Muslim League?
In Assam, where the Congress had a pre-poll alliance and contested 99 of the 126 seats, it emerged victorious in just 19.
Eighteen of its MLAs are Muslims. In West Bengal, it contested 292 seats and won two. Both its MLAs are Muslims.
The Congress won 21 of the 390 seats it contested in Assam and West Bengal. Of the 21 winners, 20 are Muslims. The party, which attacks the BJP as communal, is getting caught in its own trap. And the warning came from within Congress way back in 2014.
The Congress contested over 390 seats in Assam and West Bengal and won 21.
Of the 21 winners, 20 were Muslim candidates.
In Kerala, where the Congress-led alliance is set to form the government, the Indian Union Muslim League (IUML) is its key ally.
Has the Congress become the new Muslim League?
The question seems rationale and the warning had come way back in 2014 in the form of an internal report after its humiliating defeat to the BJP in the general elections.
Both Assam and West Bengal saw a consolidation in Hindu votes in the 2026 Assembly elections.
But why is the Congress, the Grand Old Party that housed a spectrum of ideologies and leaders, now so closely associated with minorities?
While the BJP has doubled down on Hindu voter consolidation, the Congress, with its choice of allies and bid for survival, has somehow leaned more towards Muslim voters.
The tag 'minority-appeasing party' sticks. But is the party realising the danger of facing reverse polarisation of the Hindus against the Congress ?
This issue was seen right from 2014 and A K Antony committee had diagnosed this as a major problem for the party.
The Congress won 21 of the 390 seats it contested in Assam and West Bengal. Of the 21 winners, 20 are Muslims. The party, which attacks the BJP as communal, is getting caught in its own trap. And the warning came from within Congress way back in 2014.
It's a fact the Congress gives more tickets to Muslim candidates. In Assam, the BJP mostly made its alliance partners such as the AGP to field candidates from Muslim-dominated areas.
In Assam, the Congress allied with the Badruddin Ajmal-led All India United Democratic Front (AIUDF), which has a strong presence in Lower Assam's Muslim-dominated areas.
The Congress parted ways with the AIUDF in 2021 because it didn't see electoral gains, and now Ajmal has accused the Congress of becoming the "Muslim League".
In Kerala, in the 2026 Assembly election, the Congress-led United Democratic Front (UDF) came to power with 102 of the 140 seats. There will be 35 Muslim MLAs in the Kerala Assembly, with 30 from the UDF.
Of these, 22 are from the IUML, a Muslim party and key ally of the Congress.
Eight of Congress's 63 MLAs in Kerala are Muslims.
In Tamil Nadu, where the Congress contested as a junior ally of the DMK, it fielded candidates in five seats. It won two. Of the two winners, one is a Muslim.
In November 2009, the then-Union Home Minister P. Chidambaram addressed a large gathering of Muslim clerics and followers from the Deoband seminary (Darul Uloom) in Saharanpur, Uttar Pradesh.
The visit was seen as an outreach effort to the Muslim community, during which Chidambaram stated that Islam cannot be viewed as an "alien faith" in India
The visit attracted criticism from the BJP, which objected to the Home Minister's presence at a function involving the Jamiat Ulama-i-Hind (JUH).
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