the four other pollbound assemblies has seen alternate governments tamil nadu had witnessed the phenomenon till 2011 but the then j jayalalithaaled aiadmk broke that in 2016 by winning the election for the second consecutive termthe third important reason why winning kerala assembly elections is a matter of prestige for rahul gandhi is because the congress had won 15 of the 20 seats in the 2019 lok sabha elections the congressled udf had won a whopping 19 seatsa defeat in the assembly elections would be a sharp deterioration from the congresss performance in the 2019 lok sabha electionsas far as the congresss chances of coming to power is concerned it is the brightest in kerala assam and puducherry the party is the main opposition party in kerala and assam and was the last ruling party in puducherryin west bengal the congress is a third force after the two main contenders the ruling tmc led by chief minister mamata banerjee and its main rival the bjp it has aligned with the left and peerzada abbas siddiquiheaded indian secular front isf and may end up eating into the votes of the ruling tmcin tamil nadu it is riding piggyback on the main opposition party the dmktill last month the congress was in power in puducherry however five of its mlas and one of its alliance partner dmk resigned reducing the v narayanasamy government to a minority the government lost the confidence motion following which the ut has been placed under presidents ruleit would have been easier for the congress to retain power had the narayanasamy government not got dislodged the party now faces a more difficult task to return to office in puducherryin assam the bjpled alliance and the congressled mahajoth grand alliance are in a neckandneck fight with the former having an edge over the othereven if the congress does not win assam it would not be considered a major defeat however losing kerala would be a loss of prestige for both the congress as well as rahul gandhi