NEW DELHI: Elections to Maharashtra and Haryana have lately been decided by the immediate trend of Lok Sabha elections that precede them. BJP powered by Prime Minister Narendra Modi swept the country in May 2014 and maintained the trend in the two states where polls followed. It is unlikely to be any different five years later, concede Congress leaders.Still to recover from the jolt of 2019 Lok Sabha disaster, buffeted by an acute leadership crisis and an exodus of mass leaders from both the state units, more so in Maharashtra, Congress is staring at a drubbing in what were its fiefs in not too distant a memory. In fact, Congress ruled Maharashtra in partnership with NCP of Sharad Pawar for 15 years starting 1999 and for a decade in Haryana starting 2005.The crucial variable on the twin turfs would once again be the LS results which provides the momentum for local politics.But what has compounded the problem for Congress is the paralysis that has dogged the party here for over the last two years. Congress just could not bring itself to setting its house in order when the BJP regimes , led by Devendra Fadnavis and M L Khattar, were faced with governance crises and in-house troubles. The absence of action from Congress during this period provided BJP with space for policy interventions and to try weaken the Congress and allies with defections. The disarray it triggered knocked the fight out of Congress, as witnessed in its Lok Sabha washouts.Imagine, Haryana Congress chief Ashok Tanwar was removed and replaced by former Union minister and Dalit leader Kumari Selja, accompanied by the appointment of former chief minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda as legislature party leader, this month. It was a recommendation that former AICC general secretary in-charge of Haryana, Kamal Nath , made in May 2017. The two crucial years afforded ruling BJP enough space to improvise the politics around “anti-Jat” sentiment while the infighting in Congress went from bad to worse. The assembly bypoll in Jind in January 2019 settled any lingering doubts about which way Haryana was headed.Maharashtra was a similar battlefield. Caste issues and alleged scams that hit the BJP could not hide the leadership gap in Congress, with leaders pulling in different directions.Rahul Gandhi as Congress president just did not act and now, insiders lament, it is too late.Additionally, where Congress lost crucial time were the four months after the 2019 LS polls during which the party was plunged into rudderlessness by Rahul Gandhi’s resignation as president. This was the time when Congress should have reconciled to the Lok Sabha defeat and tried to chart the course ahead. Whatever coherence is being tried now is too late in the day, argue Congress managers.The pessimism in Congress was reflected in party’s interim chief Sonia Gandhi ’s speech at a recent meeting of the AICC with state leaders. She said, “We are soon going to have elections in three states. The situation is challenging and it is only if we keep party interests and nothing else other than party interests uppermost in our minds, that we will regain our lost position.”