Narendra Modi can do no wrong. Rahul Gandhi can do no right. That's how the perception stands. Righting a wrong is not easy for even the most astute of politicians. To be fair, the first calculation error was committed by Congress war-room veterans. It was 2013, the Grand Old Party still hadn't shed its grandeur, at least not as much as it has now.
Yes, there was a bumper crop of scams, but there was still power coursing through those old wires—it hadn’t yet been reduced to just another family-owned MSME. The reluctant scions were yet to become the sole arbiters of the destiny of the 125-year-old party, once so intrinsically tied to the larger history of anti-colonial struggle across continents and to our own freedom movement. The now-on, now-off, whimsical, Vipasana- driven politics of the new-age Nehru-Gandhi kids had not yet become the main course. It was around that time that the suicidal strategy was hatched. The old warhorses, a top general (secretary) gleefully recounted back then, had come up with a 'win-win formula'.
No stopping UPA-3, the AICC officebearer added with relish to this writer. Pray, how? "Let Modi come out of Gujarat—they’ll lose Gujarat, and won’t get India either!" Wrong move, general. The calculation was: The NDA would collapse, maybe the BJP old guard would even split. Gujarat would go, and the shadow of 2002 would repel the rest of India too. As it happened, the old NDA did come apart. Nitish Kumar bid goodbye to the Modifronted BJP. But as he overcame inner-party obstacles, the future PM built up a never-before momentum. And closer to mid-2014, the UPA too started melting. Ram Vilas Paswan was the first to bolt.
Chandrababu Naidu too thought it fit to sow his seeds on that field again. On the other side, a Congress-TRS merger plan, on the back of Andhra Pradesh’s bifurcation, came unstuck. Another solid UPA backer, Lalu Prasad Yadav, was left out in the cold with the public tearing up of an ordinance that would have kept him in the fray. Whispered blame for the series of catastrophes was laid at Sonia Gandhi's door. For allowing a reluctantly anointed Rahul to have a free run. For taking a backseat while Paswan's text messages remained unanswered, as a clinched deal in Telangana fell through, and an upset Mehbooba Mufti returned to Srinagar without courtesies exchanged. Out on the streets, meanwhile, Arvind Kejriwal and his band were breaking into the mainstream, turning an old Congress slogan into their party’s name.
The general secretary who had shared the insider info has since resigned. A common enough occurrence today. Gurudas Kamat, Sanjay Nirupam, P C Chacko and Ajay Maken have all offered to resign—owning up for local poll debacles in Maharashtra and Delhi. Some of the resignations stand accepted, some not. But why did Kamat quit as state in-charge of Gujarat after the Congress washout in Mumbai’s civic polls? Infighting, of course. Having risen to the top through well-honed factional skills, at a time when there was hardly any opposition, they simply can't give up.
That's how Congress politics always worked. Kamat has been mighty upset over ‘outsider’ Nirupam ruling the roost on his home turf, Mumbai, and muffing it up big time. So is his colleague Priya Dutt, late Bollywood veteran Sunil Dutt's daughter. Nirupam too put in his papers, only to be reinstated. Maken, despite his tearful steering of the party to the third slot in Delhi, way below BJP and AAP, is being allowed a face-saver— a spike in voting percentage from 9 to 21 per cent. In Kamat's place, Ashok Gehlot has been named Gujarat in-charge, just six months before elections. And it's more to keep the ex-Rajasthan CM from tinkering in his state’s politics than anything else. Ad-hocism reigns. Of course, infighting has been a bane of the Congress from its inception.
You could even, at a stretch, ascribe the Partition of the country (and Nehru becoming the first PM) to factional conflicts. But as long as the Nehru- Gandhi legacy retained its charisma and voter connect, splinters or desertions hardly mattered. But in the midst of such doom and gloom, when the worker base has evaporated and the Congress survives as a collection of rootless leaders, further attrition can be fatal. Because it’s not as if the churning is throwing up any new politics that’s worth the satyagraha salt of old. Whatever goodwill the party retains, it's in the name of the past memories. Between its Modi-reactive politics and its new coalition ambitions, the leadership lacks the skills to fine-tune things in line with 'grassroot' realities.
A young party leader from Odisha claims rural voters in her constituency are petrified that the Congress may tie up with the BJD to keep the BJP at bay. Even now, villages there are divided, according to political preferences, into BJD and Congress households. Once that's obliterated, it becomes easier for a third force to ride in. That's what happened in Bengal and UP. Traditional rival on the ground could not bring themselves to vote for each other. At the same time, the search for political relevance in New Delhi means alliance politics is inevitable.
It's ironically in its decline that the Congress has become a viable adhesive core around which others can orient themselves. No longer driven by anti-Congressism, figures like Nitish Kumar, Mamata Banerjee, Naveen Patnaik and even Arvind Kejriwal can look towards stitching up a coalition of compulsions. Whether the Left can come and sit with the same alliance would depend on how well Sonia Gandhi can mediate. The first exploratory experiment on these lines would come around the presidential polls. Whether it only ends in an honourable defeat or gives the BJP/ NDA (still short of a clear 51 per cent on its own) a run for its money would depend on the candidates on either side. It would be a delicious irony if Sonia uses her persuasive skills to garner votes for Sharad Pawar.
Santwana Bhattacharya
Political Editor, The New Indian Express
Email: santwana@newindianexpress.com