Reduced to a tamasha

Consensus in Congress parlance means a diktat from the Gandhi family, and thus Mallikarjun Kharge’s candidature only means the choice of a faithful dictation-taker as Congress president — nothing more, nothing less. The sooner the tamasha of the Congress presidential elections ends, the better for the country’s Opposition politics, for the whole process has only served to prove beyond doubt how hollow the Congress’ claims on ideology and elections ring. If the election to the highest position in the party is rigged by the presiding family, what is left of its credibility! It would have been better for Sonia Gandhi to have continued as acting president than invite public derision by displaying the party’s inability to allow the process to play out without interference.

Advertisement

If the election to the highest position in the party is rigged by the presiding family, what is left of its credibility!

Interestingly, the Gandhi family has exposed its inability to read the minds of its most faithful retainers, thereby laying bare its organisational bankruptcy. The family, or the Gandhi trio of Sonia, Rahul and Priyanka (wonder why Vadra and his children are not decision-makers yet), first chose Rajasthan CM Ashok Gehlot to become the Congress president; a ‘choice’ which only meant that the Congress presidential elections are no elections but whims and fancies of a youthful 52-year-old man protected and indulged by a mother and a sister. If they misread Gehlot’s response, how could they ever read the mind of an average Congressman!

A regular Congressman or Congresswoman enters politics in pursuit of power — the cynical endpoint of all politicians is the starting point for enterprising Congressmen. They are power politicians nonpareil. If they have hitched their wagon to the Gandhi family, it is only in the hope of winning elections and wielding power, and if that is denied, there is no reason for them to remain loyal to the family. This is what the Congress MLAs of Rajasthan led by Gehlot unequivocally told the family: 90 out of 108 Congress MLAs did not accept the family’s choice of CM. They were not defying the family for defiance’s sake, nor were they disowning the family’s leadership. They were simply safeguarding their own interests. And no politician knows how to do it better than a Congressman. It was not love for Gehlot but intense apathy for Pilot that led to the revolt in Rajasthan Congress.

Gehlot is running one of the only two Congress governments in the country and it’s a no-brainer that a state government is the most important source of resources for a national party in Opposition. Yet, the family did not know who the best candidate to lead Rajasthan was! The Congress, surviving on the ventilator support of the Rajasthan and Chhattisgarh governments, decided to switch off the life-saving device by anointing Pilot without a clue about the MLAs’ choice. He had the support, if at all, of only about 15 MLAs. His anointment was not only feudal and fanciful, but also terribly inept. Any good political manager with some understanding of Rajasthan politics would have predicted the turn of events. More than a lack of experience or understanding, the Congress politicians now lack the guts to tell Rahul what they really think about a given situation.

Interestingly, Rahul has begun to personify all that he purportedly hated in politics, particularly the Congress. He is surrounded by a group of sycophants, whose only qualification is their ability to filter real inputs out and to make Rahul feel good about himself. Can there be a worse feudal leadership for a party than this? And for Rahul to dictate the one-man one-post principle that caused all the embarrassment was indeed hilarious because his one-man no-post obstinacy (which is, in fact, arrogance of ownership of the party) is the source of all the trouble. So, obviously, he did not have a single important leader telling him not to choose Gehlot or, at least, to allow Gehlot to retain both posts. Rahul has to be credited with the uncanny ability to rock smooth-sailing boats, be it in Punjab or Rajasthan.

Rahul acts imperviously as if he is oblivious to the single most important factor that keeps the Congress flock together still. In the process, the family and particularly Rahul mistake the Congressmen’s love for power for their loyalty towards the trio. The Congressmen and women desperately want the party organisation to remain alive and robust as an election-fighting platform that will catapult them to power. So far, no intrepid leader has been able to snatch the organisation away from the family. The putsch by petitioning done by G-23 only revealed their lack of appetite for a fight to the finish. If the Congress with the hand symbol is taken over by a group of senior leaders, they would undoubtedly command the loyalty of the majority of the MLAs, MPs, runners-up and the aspirants all across the country.

The family knows this and that is its greatest act of hypocrisy. Despite the contempt shown by Rahul to the organisation by not donning the Congress president’s hat — and worse, by handing it down to hangers-on — the family knows that it cannot afford the president’s post to be occupied by an independent, enterprising Congressman. It is akin to a lazy proprietor refusing to hand over the failing family business to a competent manager. It is always easier to think of politics as a spectacle, but there cannot be a show without a stage — the organisation. Spending 18 days on a walking vacation in one of the most beautiful states is not going to revive the party in the Hindi heartland. But then, selfie-requests and hugs make one feel good, important, popular, dimpled and handsome.

Kharge as Congress president, KC Venugopal as organisation-in-charge and Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury as party leader in the Lok Sabha will only strengthen Rahul’s direction-less, back-seat driving without an organisational plan or an electoral agenda. More debilitating than the feudal decadence of the Congress organisational structure is its appalling inefficiency. Walking, of course, is very good for Rahul’s health, not necessarily so for India’s Opposition.