NEW DELHI: The Congress’ flop show in five state elections, including its worst-ever performance in Uttar Pradesh under Priyanka Gandhi, has triggered an all-round attack on the top leadership with G23 leaders holding a meeting Friday to press for urgent reforms in the party.
The leadership’s arrogance and its growing disconnect with the people, the running of the party by a clique of sycophants who have no support among people are some of the issues being openly discussed by party leaders.
The G23 leaders, considered dissidents by those close to Rahul Gandhi, met on Friday at the residence of former Union minister Ghulam Nabi Azad in New Delhi.
Lok Sabha MP Manish Tewari, deputy leader of the party in the Rajya Sabha Anand Sharma and Rajya Sabha MP Kapil Sibal were present.
During the meeting, the leaders agreed that during the Congress Working Committee (CWC) meet, to be convened soon, they would press for reforms in the party, democratisation of decision making and timely elections for the post of Congress president and members of the CWC.
Sources said these leaders would also demand accountability for the electoral reverses and more inner-party democracy to be able to freely evaluate the party’s decisions and performance of various hand-picked functionaries.
West Bengal chief minister Mamata Bannerjee, too, had advised Congress to shed its aggressive attitude and work with the opposition parties with a positive attitude if it wished to play a role in challenging the BJP in 2024.
Former MP Sandeep Dikshit, who was also part of G23 group, fired the first salvo at party leadership by re-issuing a letter he had written to Sonia Gandhi when she was the party president. In the letter, Dikshit has decried the party’s drifting away from the very ideals on which the party was formed.
Dissident Congress leaders expected to push for date to hold internal elections
He also criticised the lack of democracy in decision-making and the rule of sycophants and suggested ways for the party to reconnect with the people.
After the G23 leaders repeatedly raised the issue of a leadership vacuum and the absence of a full-time leader, the party has started the process for organizational elections to elect a new president by September.
There has, however, been no talk of organizational elections. The group is expected to press for setting a timeline for internal elections.
The Congress’ debacle in the election will hugely impact its numbers in the Rajya Sabha in the coming months. The arithmetic is set to change this year with 48 vacancies arising in the upper house and the Congress numbers are expected to fall to an all-time low to 26. The BSP would be left with a single member and the Shiromani Akali Dal would have no representative in the Upper House.
Following a massive win in Punjab, AAP will emerge as the fourth largest party in Rajya sabha with 10 members – 3 from Delhi and 7 from Punjab. It will be the largest group after BJP, Congress, and Trinamool Congress.
The Congress is set to lose three Rajya Sabha seats from Punjab, two from Assam, one each from Himachal Pradesh, Uttarakhand, and Uttar Pradesh.
AAP new rival for Congress in national politics?
Congress now faces a dual challenge -- an existential crisis and retaining its position as the leader of the opposition camp after the AAP's spectacular victory in Punjab.
Political analysts say the road to the 2024 polls for Congress is going to get tougher as it is a party that is "in the ICU" and cannot be revived with quick-fix solutions.
The Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) Thursday stormed to power in Punjab, bagging a record 92 of the 117 seats by decimating the Congress and the SAD-BSP combine.
The Congress, meanwhile, also suffered a crushing defeat in the assembly polls in Uttar Pradesh, Manipur, Uttarakhand and Goa.
The AAP's Punjab win has brought it at par with Congress in terms of leading state governments.
The Congress is now left in power only in Rajasthan and Chhattisgarh on its own and is a junior player in the coalition governments in Maharashtra and Jharkhand.
Murmurs of discontent and talk of "change" have already begun in the Congress camp with some group of 23 leaders, who wrote to party chief Sonia Gandhi seeking an organisational overhaul, voicing concern over the massive electoral defeat.
The Congress' electoral drubbing and the AAP's phenomenal success in Punjab has also had ripples in the opposition ranks and while earlier, the Congress had been clutching on to the position of the leader of the opposition camp, it now finds itself facing threats from parties such as the AAP and the Trinamool Congress that are likely to become more assertive going forward.
Asked about what the AAP's victory means for the opposition camp and its pecking order, Shiv Sena leader Priyanka Chaturvedi said, "Firstly, the AAP victory is spectacular and it needs to be commended. At the same time, any opposition party which is giving a tough fight to the BJP should be supported."
"Whether it is going to be a challenge for the Congress party or not it is for the Congress to introspect. Opposition has to be strengthened," the Rajya Sabha member told PTI.
Asserting that opposition forces need to align together to give a tough fight to the BJP, Chaturvedi said the AAP has managed to speak on issues of governance and that is why they have managed to convince the people of Punjab.
Any opposition party which is strengthened or can be strengthened should be welcomed, she added.
"Opposition will only be strengthened with a more empowered opposition party. Punjab results have shown that people are looking for a change and people are looking for an opposition party which can talk on governance issues," Chaturvedi said.
Sanjay Kumar, Co-Director of Lokniti, a Research Programme at the Centre for the Study of Developing Societies, said the AAP's rise was a "big threat" to the Congress' position as leader of the opposition camp.
"The Congress should realise that in whichever state the AAP makes inroads, it makes heavy inroads. They made inroads in Delhi and Punjab largely at the expense of the Congress. The Congress should feel threatened by the way AAP is making inroads in different states.
Its next target is going to be Gujarat and Himachal Pradesh," Kumar told PTI.
On whether the Congress' existential crisis has become graver with the AAP's Punjab triumph, he answered in the affirmative and said that if the Kejriwal-led party will make inroads at the cost of the Congress then it is the Congress which needs to be worried about.
Using medical analogy to describe the state of the Congress, Kumar said, "If there is a fracture in the arm one goes to an orthopaedic, if there is some other ailment, you go to a specific doctor but if the patient is very critical, he is in ICU he is attended by all kinds of expert doctors.
The Congress seems to be in ICU now," Kumar said.
"It is not as if its arm or leg got fractured which needs to be attended to or something quickly can be done to revive the party. Congress is in ICU and it needs to do a lot of things. No one shortcut can help the Congress revival in the country," he said.
Rasheed Kidwai, the author of '24, Akbar Road' and 'Sonia: A Biography', said the AAP's rise is a "real threat" to the Congress' position in the opposition camp.
"How big is the threat varies from state to state. For instance, if AAP is not able to make much inroads in Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and Chhattisgarh, still the presence of a third party will provide a platform to all the disgruntled Congress leaders," he said.
The Congress' existential crisis is compounded by the AAP emerging as an option for the opposition camp, Kidwai said.
A non-Congress leader from the opposition camp, on condition of anonymity, said the Congress needs to realise that either it strengthens itself as an organisation to have that place in the opposition or it will have to standby and support those parties which have that capacity to be able to pull off an election.
"For example in Goa they did not align with others and went alone which hampered opposition unity and the votes got divided," the leader said.
The calls for change and action have also been raised from within the Congress camp.
"All of us who believe in @INCIndia are hurting from the results of the recent assembly elections. It is time to reaffirm the idea of India that the Congress has stood for and the positive agenda it offers the nation. And to reform our organisational leadership in a manner that will reignite those ideas and inspire the people," senior Congress leader Shashi Tharoor said after the latest election debacle of the Congress.
"One thing is clear -- Change is unavoidable if we need to succeed," the MP from Thiruvananthapuram said in a tweet.
(With PTI Inputs)