Committees galore, Congress in firefighting mode

Rasheed Kidwai

Rasheed Kidwai
Senior journalist and author

As the longest-serving Congress president in the history of the 135-year-old organisation, Sonia Gandhi has developed a penchant for ‘committee raj’ in the party.

Sonia on Monday set up several panels in the party-ruled states of Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and Chhattisgarh. While Punjab was spared from a coordination panel, it figures among the states where Sonia as ‘interim’ party chief named committees to oversee if Congress-ruled states are fulfilling poll manifesto promises. The Punjab manifesto implementation committee is headed by former Union minister P Chidambaram and includes Haryana Congress chief Kumari Selja, Chief Minister Captain Amarinder Singh, state party chief Sunil Jakhar and general secretary in charge Asha Kumari.

Coming at a time when the Congress should be holding organisational polls and looking for a full-time new party chief, the announcement of these panels indicates that Rahul Gandhi’s induction as AICC president may take more time than expected. The development also indicates that differences within various state party units have turned so ugly that ‘outsiders’, in addition of AICC general secretaries in charge of the respective states, are required to bring a sense of truce among the warring factions or ensure that poll promises are fulfilled.

Sonia had recently named various panels for poll-bound Delhi, drafting as many as 607 members in it.

Party insiders wonder how effective these coordination panels can be in resolving differences among the regional satraps. In Rajasthan, it is an open secret that Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot and Deputy CM Sachin Pilot do not get along on a number of issues. In Madhya Pradesh, camp followers of Jyotiraditya Scindia and Digvijaya Singh always sound dissatisfied with Chief Minister Kamal Nath. In Chhattisgarh, tales of one-upmanship among CM Bhupesh Baghel and senior ministers TS Singh Deo and Tamradhwaj Sahu are part of local folklore.

Senior Congress leaders who are well-versed with internal dynamics and functioning wonder how the likes of Dipak Babaria, PL Punia, Mukul Wasnik and Avinash Pandey will be able to enforce discipline and unity in Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Puducherry and Haryana, respectively, through coordination panels when they failed to handle it as AICC general secretaries? Given the political stature of veterans like Kamal Nath and Ashok Gehlot, Sonia needs to look for experienced and respectable hands to ensure smooth functioning.

Sonia has thrice turned to AK Antony to suggest means for revival of the Congress. The Antony panels were formed in 1999, 2008 and 2014 to deal with organisational issues. The first Antony panel was formed after the 1999 General Election. Committee members had toured all over India and spoken to a large number of Congress workers about the reasons that led to the debacle. The committee had submitted 20 specific recommendations relating to party elections, intra-party democracy, party structure, candidate selection and observers for the process.

Recommendations were also made on matters of party discipline, the nitty-gritty of organisational elections, media relations as well as interactions with opinion-makers, alliances, coalitions, ideology and image. The committee had recommended a clean-up drive but the high command decided against it. Antony submitted another report in 2008 after the Congress’ defeat in Karnataka, Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh and Rajasthan.

In August 2014, Antony again submitted a report listing reasons for the party’s humiliating defeat in the 2014 Lok Sabha polls where he blamed the leadership for pitching the elections as a battle between secularism and communalism which voters perceived as some sort of minority appeasement.

Sonia and Rahul are also in possession of several other reports gathering dust at 24, Akbar Road. They include the report on organisational polls by Ram Niwas Mirdha, Manmohan Singh’s report on party funds, the PA Sangma and Sam Pitroda reports on modernising the organisation and Pranab Mukherjee’s report on organisational affairs. The list also includes documents prepared by the AICC’s department of policy and planning (DIPCO) and the Future Challenges Group that has Rahul Gandhi as a member.

In a nutshell, almost all of these panels and committees have recommended sweeping changes in the organisation but intrinsic compulsions had so far prevented any concrete action.

Both Mirdha and Antony had emphasised the need for ‘democratic’ organisational elections after discovering that the party had polled less votes in many states where the number of primary members was higher. This situation held true for the Congress in Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh and a few other states.

In July 2007, a party panel headed by the then Foreign Minister Mukherjee had called for scrapping Congress committees at block, city and district levels and recommended replacing them with units at polling booths and Assembly and parliamentary constituencies. The logic was to make the Congress more ‘election-friendly’ and eliminate the tendency of district party committees being at loggerheads with candidates contesting polls. But the leadership is still weighing the pros and cons of the suggestion.

Like Antony, Mukherjee had insisted on selecting Assembly and parliamentary poll candidates at least six months before voting, but subsequent Assembly polls have shown no sign of the recommendation being followed. Sonia and her son have an option of making a bid to revitalise the party, what its wiser and senior leaders have given in writing. Indolence, dilly-dallying and ‘committee raj’ would hurt the Congress further.

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