New low for battered Cong

The outcome of five Assembly polls seems to have sounded the death knell for the Congress. The Grand Old Party had nearly 11 months to prepare for the Assembly polls of Punjab, Uttarakhand, Goa, Manipur and Uttar Pradesh after the April-May 2021 round of polls in Kerala, Assam, West Bengal, Tamil Nadu and Puducherry, but Rahul Gandhi, considered as the real head of the party, did little. Until July 2021, he kept himself in isolation over the second round of Covid. Then Rahul began experimenting in Punjab, rather recklessly, losing a state to an ambitious Aam Aadmi Party.

Rahul also frittered away a chance to rope in poll strategist Prashant Kishor. PK, as he is fondly called, would perhaps have helped the Congress retain power in Punjab and wrest Goa and Uttarakhand from the BJP. Instead, Rahul tried to abruptly bench Captain Amarinder Singh. When contender Navjot Singh Sidhu looked all set to make good governance, drug-sand mafia, transparency and be-adbi key poll issues, Rahul ensured that Sidhu’s oratory and campaigning skills did not take off.

In an acrimonious selection of Amarinder’s successor, Sidhu was sidelined and a “Dalit card” was played. Charanjit Singh Channi’s 111-day tenure as the chief minister of Punjab was touted as a masterstroke but the agile and sagacious Punjabi electorate was able to see through it. Channi was neither considered a poor man nor an able administrator. Allegations of corruption, nepotism and tales of disproportionate wealth kept doing the rounds and did the Congress in. In fact, in the six months prior to March 10, the Congress in Punjab looked an assembly of disgruntled party leaders in a self-destructive mode. Virtually everyone in the state Congress was happy to be unhappy. Punjab was yearning for change which AAP dished out. Sidhu too was for change but his vision and programme was not put to any use.

The electoral success of AAP outside Delhi is a bigger headache for the Congress than the BJP’s fabulous march in Lucknow, Dehradun and Imphal. Over the next 24 months, AAP chief and Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal would act as a spoiler for the Congress. AAP will go all out to expand its base outside Punjab and Delhi — to the poll-bound states of Gujarat, Himachal Pradesh and Karnataka where Assembly elections will be held later this year or in early 2023.

The choice of Congress managers for the poll-bound states of Punjab, Uttarakhand and Manipur left a lot to be desired. Harish Rawat was looking after Punjab affairs till November 2021 when he had to request Rahul and Sonia Gandhi to relieve him from the organisational duties and focus on Uttarakhand. Rawat, during his term as AICC’s point man, had enjoyed good rapport with Sidhu, Sunil Jakhar and others. He was replaced by Harish Chaudhary, a state minister in Rajasthan. For Uttarakhand, Sonia appointed Devendra Yadav, a lesser-known and lightweight politician from Delhi. In the tricky poll preparation matters, Yadav and Chaudhary proved inadequate. They lacked the heft that was required to strike a balance among the warring factions. Sonia in particular remained a casual bystander each time Sidhu fumed or Jakhar made remarks that proved politically damaging. Perhaps Sonia wanted to give Rahul and Priyanka a free hand, but this course of neutrality and indifference proved fatal.

What will happen to the Congress? The loyalists may try to rally round the beleaguered Gandhi siblings but 10, Janpath has lost its ‘iqbal’ (grace) within the Congress parivar. It is high time that Sonia Gandhi, acting as defunct ‘interim AICC president’, resigns immediately and convenes an emergency AICC session to let 1,300 party delegates elect a new president — a non-Gandhi. A number of Congress leaders have the potential to lead the party effectively while the political leadership stays with the Gandhis. For the parliamentary wing, the party should start looking away from Adhir Ranjan Choudhury to a more credible Shashi Tharoor. It is never too late for course correction.

The dissenters and rebels within the Congress are waiting for the presidential poll to question the leadership’s authority. The presidential poll has a history of turning the country’s political fortunes. When President Zakir Hussain died on May 3, 1969, in office, Indira Gandhi, Prime Minister then, had stunned her own party managers by backing VV Giri. The official Congress party had issued a whip to all party members to vote for Neelam Sanjeeva Reddy. Indira appealed to all Congress MPs and MLAs to vote according to their “conscience”. VV Giri was elected and Indira was subsequently expelled from the Congress.

In July 2022, the Congress or the Opposition may not be in a position to influence the outcome of presidential polls, but it provides an opportunity for the Congress dissenters, to harm and hurt the Gandhis.

In a series of interviews after joining active politics in 1998, Sonia Gandhi had repeatedly stated that her purpose in politics was to revive and restore the glory of the Congress. Having played that role for almost 24 years, Sonia now needs to let someone else, a non-Gandhi, to attempt achieving that task. Timing is invaribly crucial in politics. Sonia should consider passing on the baton before an ordinary party worker musters courage to tell her and her children: “Aapse nahee ho payega.”