Anil Anand
Where does the Congress go from here after second successive debacle in 2019-Lok Sabha elections further compounded by the party president Rahul Gandhi losing the family citadel of Amethi to BJP’s shooting star Samriti Irani? The only solace that he won from Waynad in Kerala and that the party increased its tally by half-a-dozen seats barely managing to cross the half-century mark.
In the midst of ruins the Congress Working Committee (CWC), perceived to be the highest decision making body of the century old party, met to take stock of the situation. The army of defeated generals, except the real-time Captain Amrinder Singh, Chief Minister of Punjab who withered the storm to keep his fortress intact, sat with sullen faces and not knowing what went wrong and what to do next.
Four hour long deliberations, a record of sorts as the highest decision making body is known for passing inconsequential resolutions and disbursing within a short span of time, saw Rahul bravely owning the responsibility for the defeat. The follow-up was on expected lines as the army of generals prevailed upon their chief not to press for his resignation as he had fought the electoral battle from the front and that he was the only opposition leader who took Prime Minister Narendra Modi head on. He was given the mandate to immediately overhaul the party and take remedial measures Rahul is adamant and rightly too, he should have his own way.
Yes, it is true that Rahul led from the front. Yes it is true he took on the might of Modi by trying to implicate him in Rafale deal and questioning his Government’s performance on many fronts. And yes, it is true that he owned the responsibility and offered to resign.
But what is surprising is that none of the CWC members, leaving aside Sonia Gandhi and former Prime Minister Dr Manmohan Singh, including chief ministers and senior leaders from different states uttered a word to own responsibility for poor show in their respective areas. Agreed it was too early to conduct post-mortem of the reasons behind defeat but least one expected was that these leaders should have owned responsibility by prevailing upon Rahul not to resign.
The aged party is in dire need of a new idiom, a new narrative and a new plan on course to rejuvenation. The beginning could have been made in this CWC itself though in a limited way. As the one who does not believe in politics of resignations, it was imperative that the occasion could have been used by a set of veteran and defeated leaders to jointly offer that they would no more run for any office and that they would work for rebuilding the party organisation in their respective states. But that was not to be. That also explains the serious challenge ahead for Rahul.
In the midst of ruins the CWC (read Rahul only) exuded some ray of hope with at least to observations made by him pointing towards a new direction that the Congress direly needs to adopt. It was rather surprising that Rahul treaded on a new path and did some tough talking even with some of the veteran leaders present in the meeting particularly those who pushed the candidature of their wards and even made a strong mention of why not a Congress president from outside the Gandhi family.
Rahul is angry and it is understandable. He is angry because the party has fared very badly. He is more angry because he was a loner in waging a battle against strong team Modi, as top Congress stalwarts either looked the other way or maintained studied slience. This anger was reflected in the CWC when he backed by Priyanka Gandhi Vadra asked the leaders present as to how many of them raised the issue of Rafale. Asked to raise hands if any? None!
Tough talk, tough and quick decisions and to act with decisive authority- it is the only way forward for beleaguered Rahul. It would be a tough task reigning in the veterans, make them see the reality to pave way for the younger generation but the call would have to be taken by him. This is nobody’s case to suggest any disrespect to the veterans but the veterans cannot continue to take things for granted particularly when the organisation that gave them name, fame and affluence is facing serious danger to its existence. The respect at this juncture has to be earned by them by truly acting as veterans or seniors, ready to make way for new generations and help the latter preparing for new challenges. And to begin with, cap their personal ambitions and street fighting among themselves.
One is certainly not suggesting creation of a BJP-like ‘Margdarshak Mandal’ to form a club of 75+ age group leaders simply to sideline them as has been done by the ruling party. Why should not the Congress veterans themselves come out with a plan to help Rahul in rebuilding the organisation and help young generation of leaders? The idea here is to take benefit of the veteran’s experience and not sideline them as a punitive measure.
What caused the Congress defeat apart from a well orchestrated BJP campaign spearheaded by superb communicator Modi and superb planner the party chief Amit Shah? To point out a few weak links, it was the near non-existent organisational structure and whatever existed was ridden with factionalism a lacklustre and disconnected campaign and failure to properly communicate its poll promises to the voters are some of the reasons.
Just to give an idea of the magnitude of the defeat nine former Congress chief ministers Sheila Dikshit (Delhi), Bhupinder Singh Hooda (Haryana), Sushilkumar Shinde and Ashok Chavan (Maharashtra), Harish Rawat (Uttarakhand), M Veerappa Moily (Karnataka), Digvijaya Singh (MP), Mukul Sangma (Meghalaya) and Nabam Tuki (Arunachal PraTroubles desh) – tasted defeat. There were scores of other senior leaders such as M Malikarjun Kharge, leader of Congress group in the just expired Lok Sabha, AICC general secretary Jyotiraditya Scindia, who had to bite the dust.
Another magnitude of the catastrophic defeat was that the Congress despite being in a coalition in Karnataka faced the drubbing from a divided BJP. More seriously, despite having regained power after long hiatus in Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh and Chattisgarh recently, the party was nearly wiped out in this Hindi heartland which is also known as the cow belt.
Nothing would be electorally achieved until Rahul is able or is allowed to build a new team at the Centre and in turn draw a blue print to develop leadership at all levels and finally aim at strengthening the organisation. The current model of a top leader on solo mission across the country without any ground support in terms of organisational back will meet the same fate again. The latest example in this connection is that of Priyanka Gandhi Vadra. Her presence did create a buzz and she was able to attract crowds but lacked the ground level organisational network to sustain the buzz.
Rahul must follow his tough posturing in CWC to its logical conclusion. Let this not be bubble phenomena and extract your pound of flesh by pinning down the veterans before you agree to continue in the hot seat.
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