Bharat Bhushan: Congress at crossroads: Can letter-politics save the party?
NB: There is much to say about this issue, and the author has covered vast ground. I only wish to add two comments: one, that democracy cannot be preserved by a movement or party that is itself not democratic; and two, that all the symptoms referred to below have a simple common cause - deep-rooted laziness; both organisational and intellectual. DS
The Congress party has been shirking the two most
important challenges before it: election of a full-time president and resolving
factional disputes in the states. The letter from 23
Congressmen to Sonia Gandhi, leaked to the media on the eve of a crucial Congress Working
Committee meeting, suggests that the rot is deeper than imagined. Although
packaged as an agenda for organisational reform, the letter indicates that the
signatories -- and perhaps others -- have lost faith in the Gandhi family’s
leadership. They suggest setting up a “collective leadership” where the family
will have a seat along with others.
However the talk of
“collective leadership” also reveals a lack of consensus in accepting a leader
from among themselves. Would they not have otherwise proposed his or her as
party president? Whether one likes it or not, the Congress has
become a party where only the Gandhis continue to have a pan-India appeal,
acceptance and brand recognition. It cannot be transformed suddenly without self-destructing. Instead of writing
public letters, senior Congress leaders on the wrong side of seventy should be
grooming new leaders. They hold no appeal to youthful voters who, according to
them, have been alienated by Rahul
Gandhi.
Recently, Congress
general secretary Priyanka
Gandhi was quoted as having said that she agreed with her brother that
someone from outside the Gandhi family should be the party president. This made
sense more than a year ago when the interview was given, immediately
after Rahul Gandhi resigned as Congress president. It has no
relevance today. The time for a
non-Gandhi to lead the Party has come and gone. At the time of Rahul’s
resignation, a party shell-shocked by electoral defeat, chose the safety of the
Gandhi family, and made Sonia
Gandhi its interim-president.
A year down, the circumstances have
changed. The party has created no process for electing a non-Gandhi as its
president. Nor have those who oppose Rahul
Gandhi been able to prop-up an alternative to him. In recent months there
were several straws in the wind indicating that Rahul Gandhi was readying to
take charge as party president. His public interventions, interviews, press
interactions and aggressive public posture all pointed to it. Sonia
Gandhi was also decidedly absent from the scene during the Rajasthan
crisis, with Rahul Gandhi taking decisions normally taken by the party chief.
But the process has
been delayed endlessly. Perhaps it was hoped that a chorus of party workers and
leaders would demand his return as President. But no such orchestration has
been possible in the face of discordant voices within, the conditions created
by the pandemic and the prolonged political crisis in Rajasthan. Any further delay in
electing a full-time president may invite the intervention of the Election
Commission for violating the norms set for political parties. The Congress
therefore needs to set in motion a process for its organisational rejuvenation
both at the Centre and in the states. To be Congress president, Rahul Gandhi
must be elected through a democratic process even if it is only a straw
candidate who opposes him.
Despite attempts by
the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) to project him as a callow leader, he has
repeatedly proven them wrong. Political conditions will not always remain
favourable to the BJP. When the winds of change come, the Congress should be
ready to put up its sails. That requires a healthy organisation and a captain
firmly in charge. Rahul Gandhi is the best bet to lead the party as he remains.
No “collective leadership” of geriatrics can achieve what he can.
Organisational
elections, which even the collective letter of Congressmen suggests, are
urgently necessary. They alone can help resolve factionalism in the state units
and to ready them for facing elections. Crises may erupt in states other than
Rajasthan. Punjab Chief Minister Amrinder Singh’s government is in an ongoing
battle with former state Congress president and party MP, Pratap Singh Bajwa.
In Jharkhand, internal squabbles have meant that even ministerial berths in the
coalition government have not been filled. The party also does not have a
full-time president.
After dissidence
brought down the Kamal Nath government in Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh Chief
Minister Bhupesh Baghel has had to take defensive action. He has distributed
loaves and fishes of office to 50 legislators and other potential dissidents.
This was to contain the simmering intra-party rivalry between Baghel, and other
aspirants for his job like T S Singh Deo, Tamradhwaj Sahu and Charandas Mahant. In Maharashtra, the
factional war in the Mumbai unit remains unresolved and the party has not found
a suitable candidate to head the prestigious Mumbai Congress Committee.
Eighty-year-old Eknath Gaikwad continues to be acting president since the
removal of Sanjay Nirupam. In Rajasthan, the crisis could have a second coming
whenever Pilot has the numbers and the prospect of getting a good deal are brighter.
The solution to the
internal squabbles in the party’s state units is to hold genuine organisational
elections. Democratic processes would help elected leaders gain organisational
legitimacy and their detractors to accept them. The party will also be able to
assess the strengths and weaknesses of the state units. The Congress party can
no longer resolve factionalism by dispensing patronage because it is out of
power at the Centre and in large swathes of the country. Organisational
elections are the alternative route for providing upward mobility to ambitious
and honest party workers. When the high command is weak it needs healthy state
units to support it. Even if the BJP seems unassailable at the Centre, in the
states at least the people should be able to see the Congress as a credible
alternative.
Setting an
organisational election process in motion ought to be the party’s mission over
the next six months. Without an organisation, even if the party develops a
political counter-narrative, without new energy and new leaders at the
grassroots, there would be no one to carry it to the people.
