Fight for Congress leadership change not enough
The battle between the rebels and the Congress leadership appears more for the control of the organisation rather than between competing ideas for regaining the party’s lost popular support. Rebels blame the Gandhis for the party’s misfortunes. Prominent rebel Kapil Sibal demanded that the main family step aside and allow a non-Gandhi to take over the reins of the party.
Rahul Gandhi has proved to be no match for Narendra Modi. Under his leadership, the Congress has been reduced to its lowest ever tally in the Lok Sabha. It did not even win enough seats to get the position of Leader of Opposition in the lower house. The party may soon lose that position in the Rajya Sabha too. In recent state elections, the party performed miserably all around. In Uttar Pradesh, it could win the support of only about 2% of voters, the lowest it has received in that state since Independence.
That the Congress fortune has rapidly gone downhill under Rahul Gandhi’s leadership is for all to see. Rahul had resigned as president after the party lost the second successive Lok Sabha election under him. But he continued as the de facto head, taking all important decisions. Therefore, the usual show put up by the Congress leadership after the drubbing it received in the five state elections has failed to impress loyalists as well as the rebels. Its announcement of a Chintan Shivir, or a brainstorming session, has been scoffed at. These Chintan Shivirs have yielded little in the past. There is no talk about the elephant in the room, which is the party’s growing disconnect with the people.
The rebels too have merely demanded a change in leadership. They would have done better to produce an alternative electoral strategy, a paper on changes the Congress requires to make in its policies and programmes to win popular support. They should have come out with a vision document to show that they really mean to strengthen the Congress and are not playing into the hands of other parties to weaken the Congress by constantly attacking it.