Ground level workers, who put the hardest work, do not get any recognition or appreciation. It is the English speaking elites educated in foreign universities who get prominence over a dedicated party worker having strong hold on the ground,” said Vineet Singh (name changed), a party worker for 22 years at the Congress headquarters, as he tries to control his tears.
“We will have to reinvent ourselves keeping in mind changing aspirations of Indian people, especially youngsters and focus on strengthening party at the ground,” said a party general secretary, on condition of anonymity.
This sums up what ails the grand old party. The duo agree that the party needs to fix loopholes fast in order to bounce back. The party has to get its act together as Maharashtra, Haryana and Jharkhand are to go to assembly polls by the end of the year. It also has to keep its flock together in states like Karnataka, MP and Rajasthan where it is in power.
In 2014, it was the anti-incumbency against the two terms of UPA and a Modi wave that trounced the Congress to just 44 votes but in 2019, despite issues like agrarian crisis, unemployment and state of economy, the party failed to capitalize.
The defeat in 2019 is massive as Rahul Gandhi lost from Gandhi family bastion Amethi, one of two seats he contested. While party managed to win 52 seats the party’s vote share remained stagnant around 19.5 per cent compared to 2014. Nine of party’s former chief ministers lost elections.
According to a senior party functionary, what the party lacks is fixing responsibility for the downfall over the years and top leadership’s unwillingness to tolerate dissent in the party. Several committees have been constituted and the last one after the 2014 general election under A K Antony but their reports were never shared with the party functionaries.
“Until we focus on reviving party from grassroots it is difficult to make any headway. Today’s generation is driven by mobiles and we need to engage with them at their favoured means of communication, which the BJP has mastered and the Congress has been a slow starter,” said a senior leader from Rajasthan.
Missing foot soldiers
In many states, the party’s booth level committees and district level committees are either not in place or flooded with people having proximity to senior party leadership, which means they lack connect to people and ground situation.
“In Haryana, there are no block level or district level committees and the party contested Lok Sabha elections. We are likely to even contest assembly elections later this year without any organisation structure in place, so you can expect the results,” said a party member from Haryana. Party stalwarts and former Haryana CM Bhupinder Singh Hooda, his son Deepender Hooda and party chief in the state lost with huge margins.
The party managed a vote share of just about 6% in UP and West Bengal (having one-fourth Lok Sabha seats). The vote share was over 7% in Bihar and around 1% in Andhra Pradesh. In UP, the party doesn’t even have groundworkers in Rae Bareli which elected UPA chairperson Sonia Gandhi. Party leaders cite that also as one of the reasons for Rahul’s defeat in Amethi.
“The problem with the Congress is that it has top-heavy leadership but no ground support. We have been campaigning door to door in Rae Bareli in support of Sonia Gandhiji following call from our leader Akhilesh Yadav,” said Yogesh Yadav, a member of SP in Rae Bareli.
“The candidate selection has been slow and probable candidates need to sweat out at AICC headquarters for over a month to get a ticket while that time should be used to canvas on the ground,” said a former Congress MP from Rajasthan.
A senior member of the AICC communication team also cited the efficient booth management by BJP that woos the voters when they step out to vote. “Our booth managers told us that the BJP booth outside polling stations offered water and snacks to everyone while the Congress booth didn’t even have a canopy to give shade in this summer,” the member said.
Need to reinvent
“The Congress was a movement and not a party before independence but if we continue to think it that way, we are headed nowhere. With everyone having access to smart phones, we have to rework entire strategy to match aspiration of new generations. The BJP has been efficiently using technology to regularly touch base with voters. We have started it but really need to pick up,” said another party leader from Gujarat.
The party’s data analytics department launched online membership drive with a new Shakti App in March 2018. There were around 67 lakh members by mid-May. “The membership picked up after the results of three state assemblies where party came back to power. This has to be done aggressively round the year so that we connect with more people and groom them to be our foot soldiers in their areas,” said a member of the data analytics cell.
Rahul Gandhi reportedly doesn’t have a political advisor. “Someone from his team should have assessed that negative campaigning and Modi bashing isn’t going down well. There is an urgent need for him to include people connected with ground in his core team,” said a party leader.