It’s a world where Keshav Baliram Hedgewar was once a Congress stormtrooper, and where Mohan Kumaramangalam’s family has made a rainbow bridge - from the purest Communist aristocracy to the saffron brotherhood, with a long pit-stop in the GOP. We shouldn’t be needing new examples to demonstrate how malleable a metal our politics is. But we have one more: a newly saffronised Jyotiraditya Scindia, staring unblinkingly at the cameras, finishing off his family’s acrobatic loop from right to centre and back. The stories thereafter were, predictably, more about the practice of politics than theory. In practice, this looked reasonably sound, prima facie. As Jyotiraditya reached his Delhi home in his Range Rover, followed by frenzied TV crews and a motley crowd gathered for selfies, the aura of an impending Cabinet post was around him. Wind back to Bhopal of a few weeks ago ... CM Kamal Nath, surrounded by TV cameras, was being asked for a response to news that “Scindiaji” had been threatening to take to the streets against his own government if the promises made in the Congress manifesto for Madhya Pradesh were not implemented. Kamal Nath, his trademark Doon School grin in place, had shot back calmly: “Karne do”! Let him do it. Well, he did. And when the Scindia scion, wrapped in BJP regalia, trotted out his formulaic justifications for what is one of the most stunning political turns we’ve seen in recent times, he didn’t talk about thwarted ambition. Instead, he listed the same promises his erstwhile party had made to the voters and farmers of MP - a road from which, he alleged, the Congress has deviated in the last 18 months of rule. “Yeh Congress, woh Congress nahin raha!” he intoned, or words to that effect, sounding almost like a lost father in a Manmohan Desai family saga.
You could read multiple ironies into that. In an inverted economic reading, “This is not that pro-market Congress of the reforms era, never mind the farmers.” Or politically, “This is not that same Congress which the BJP attacked the most, and hence...” Or simply, “This is no longer that bellwether, blue-chip stock on the political sensex.” Yes, indeed. Despite all the attrition, there’s no dearth of leaders queueing up at the Congress PDS counter, but its stock of supplies has shrunk. The party’s distribution system is under tremendous strain and the essential commodities are zealously guarded by the Gandhi family (right now, Sonia Gandhi).
It’s a famine economy. Could Sonia offer a Rajya Sabha seat to Jyotiraditya over Digvijaya Singh? No, she wouldn’t, said a young party insider, gloomily counting Diggy Raja’s 40 years in the Congress as against the Gwalior scion’s 18! CM-ship, then? No chance, said another. Did you try to talk to your friend? “No. Am I authorised? Plus, what can I offer him?” (Er…ideology? Bashful laughter.) These two lines, from young and promising Congress leaders with several decades of politics left in them, sums it up. One helplessly watched his friend and colleague walk away to the rival camp, but couldn’t intervene because no one in the Congress boardroom thought it fit to avail his services. (Who knows, he may get ideas himself, or at least the next phone call!) And no, there was nothing on the table—it was
an offer that Scindia couldn’t not refuse.
Yes, ambition is the lithium battery that runs politics. It needs recharging every now and then. At a humbler level, there’s also a few deliverables that you must be able to parcel out to your voters and supporters—the ecosystem around you. If you can’t do that, you don’t survive. But Sonia was empty-handed at the top—and a symbolically shut door recalled the exits of Jagan Mohan Reddy (bye bye Andhra) and Himanta Biswa Sarma (bye bye Northeast). Locally too, Nath/Diggy were squeezing Jyotiraditya out of even the humblest bread at the table, getting your favourites the usual board appointments.
Even if the party is putting up a face of ideological bravado, it has had plenty occasion to repent at leisure. Remember Priyanka Chaturvedi? That bright, articulate spokesperson handpicked by Rahul Gandhi, who walked over to the Shiv Sena in a huff and is now flourishing? We may soon see her in the Rajya Sabha from Maharashtra with Rahul’s erstwhile best buddy ‘Jyoti’.Also, every time a certain Mahua Moitra delivers a smash hit speech in the Lok Sabha, a young Congresswoman wonders, “How did we lose her? Why could RG not retain her?” Well, same reason. The Congress old guard in West Bengal, or the rump that’s left, may not be good at winning elections but they are champs at chasing people out of their fiefdom. Mahua switched to the TMC because there was no scope for her in the INC. Scindia’s unsaid words.
There’s a stark difference though. Mahua (and her current mentor Mamata Banerjee) may have been edged out by the entrenched satraps of their respective times. But Mamata walked out with most of the Congress cadre and leaders in tow, and became a parallel Congress. Scindia, while exacting revenge unto those who dealt him dishonour, has taken a leap of faith. And genetically remodified his ideology. That he may have found himself at odds with the pronounced left-of-centre position the Congress has taken of late remains now a side note. (This isn’t about that economics, stupid.) But yes, the mood swings of RaGa—just like his now-on, now-off beard—do leave the party and its sympathisers in a state of identity confusion. No, Pappu is not an accurate description of a person under whom the Congress did win a few states, and nearly pulled off a few more. This includes an absolute majority in Chhattisgarh, where RG had a free hand, and yes, India’s political map does look a lot different in 2020 from what it did a few years ago. But make no mistake, this is a severe hemorrhage. (ICU update: a belated bandage in the form of D K Shivakumar.)
Santwana Bhattacharya
Resident Editor, Karnataka Email: santwana@newindianexpress.com