While the Congress party’s central power politics is the reason behind its decline; Richa Sharma uncovers murmurs suggesting that a new policy giving more power to strong regional leaders with minimum interference from the central leadership may inspire the party’s resurgence
Congress President Rajiv Gandhi at his inaugural speech at the Congress Centenary Session in Bombay on December 28, 1985 talked about how the Grand Old Party was losing touch with the people and emphasised on the need for a mass movement.
“What has become of our great organisation? Instead of a party that fired the imagination of the masses throughout the length and breadth of India, we have shrunk, losing touch with the toiling millions,” said Rajiv at the historic event.
Nearly 34 years later, the party does not seem to have learnt much and continues to face same problems. That was clearly reflected in Rahul Gandhi’s July 3 statement where he talked about fighting a deeper ideological battle to defeat the opponents and making hard decisions for rebuilding the party.
“It is a habit in India that the powerful cling to power, no one sacrifices power,” said Rahul hitting out at the senior party leadership in his final letter reiterating his decision to quit as the party chief. Facing an existential crisis in face of the BJP juggernaut, the party seems to have failed to do much to stop the growing rot over the last few decades and did not strictly address incidents of gross indiscipline in the party.
Majority of the Congress leaders and party workers agree that the party lost connect with masses and its revival depends upon how soon and well it manages to re-connect. Consistently growing differences among party’s central and state leadership across the country is further disenchanting the Congress rank and file on the ground.
“45 days have gone and apart from media loaded speculations, there is no sign of the new Congress President. Karnataka and Goa developments depict that anarchy is creeping in where opportunists and power brokers are having the last laugh. No point in blaming BJP, if fault within,” tweeted Rachit Seth, party’s national media coordinator, before he quit the post. He is part of the young team picked by Rahul.
State of affairs
While the Congress faces trouble state after state starting from Karnataka to Goa and in Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan where the party governments are on tenterhooks, there is this leaderless situation (post-Rahul’s resignation) where nobody knows where the party is headed as wait and watch continues. Few senior leaders have expressed their views but the party is yet to take a call on its revival as suggested by Rahul in his parting letter.
Recently, in a newspaper article, Punjab chief minister and senior Congress leader Captain Amarinder Singh flagged some points and stressed on giving full power to strong regional leaders with minimum interference from the central leadership behind party's success.
Perhaps, that is one model which has given Congress some success in the past few years. For instance, in the last one year, when the party gave autonomy to state leaders in Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh, it tasted some success despite differences in state leadership.
Amarinder cited Punjab as an example where he was given a free hand and the party won the state assembly elections and performed well in both 2014 and 2019 Lok Sabha elections.
“Regional alliances, and more autonomy to the party’s own regional leaders, will, in my opinion, give a big boost to its efforts to connect with the people pan-India, and eventually translate into bigger vote share and more electoral victories for the party,” he said. But these instances raise a larger question of interference from the central leadership of Congress.
Bridging factions
A senior leader of Haryana Congress said the leaders appointed as general secretary incharge of states are expected to act as a bridge between different factions rather than taking sides and further dividing the party.
“A general secretary behaves in a manner that he/she is no less than the party president and they don’t meet common people and are always surrounded by people close to them. When they visit states, one can see their tantrums,” said a party worker, associated with the party for several years.
There are enumerable examples in states like Haryana where AICC incharge Ghulam Nabi Azad seemingly doesn't get along well with state chief Ashok Tanwar and in Delhi, differences among state chief Sheila Dikshit and AICC incharge P C Chacko were out open during Lok Sabha election over alliance with AAP. Many in Maharashtra Congress accuse AICC incharge Maharashtra Mallikarjun Kharge of failing to address problem in state unit with various party factions hurting party.
Similarly in Goa, central incharge A Chella Kumar did not do much to keep party MLAs together and even Congress Legislature Party leader Chandrakant Kavlekar joined the BJP. The party has already dissolved the Pradesh Congress Committee in Karnataka while retaining president and deputy president.
Priyanka Chaturvedi, former Congress spokesperson, who quit the party and joined Shiv Sena, also talks about how majority of the state incharges after appointments never visit the states.
“It gets them the all important place in the Congress Working Committee along with the authority to take a call on ticket distribution. The state presidents are busy saving their own seat thanks to infighting that they have little or no time to fight for the party. Most unique is their ability to only have yes men around and just no stomach to fight opponents, find own weaknesses, be open to criticism,” Chaturvedi said in a series of tweets on Thursday.
Some senior party leaders talk about gross indiscipline in the Congress and cite example of BJP’s disciplined cadre and how top leadership treat indiscipline with an iron hand.
“A strong message needs to go to everyone. For example, a former minister in Delhi government quit the party and joined BJP but six months later, he came back and was given party ticket to contest the Lok Sabha election. What message did it send to the party workers and leaders that you do anything, there is no punishment. There are many examples like this and these need to be addressed,” said an
AICC secretary.
There are many problems that need to addressed but the top most is appointment of a new party chief, feel many leaders and party workers.“In order to revive the party, we need a fighter (as Congress president) who knows how to connect with people and fight the BJP on all fronts for we are up against an opponent who knows no rules and would do anything to remain in power,” said a senior leader from Gujarat.Amidst the gloom, there are many who are optimistic as they cite situations in 1967 and 1977, when the party faced similar situation but was soon back on its feet. Will history repeats itself, only time will tell.
Not in power
Being out of power for the past 28 years in Uttar Pradesh, Congress has been a party in disarray. Nearly defunct, it is gasping in country’s political hotbed which plays a very important role in making the governments at the Centre by sending 80 members, one fifth of total strength of the lower house of Parliament.
Ironically, the downslide, which had begun in 1989 with 94 seats in UP assembly, touched the nadir failing to touch the double digit and had to be content with just seven seats in kitty in 2017. Similarly, the party had 15 members in Lok Sabha from UP in 1989. This number came down to two in the 2014 general elections and has reduced to just one with even Rahul Gandhi losing the plot in Amethi.