Simply Haryana: Rahul Gandhi’s visit sets ball rolling for faction-ridden Cong’s revamp

Leader of Opposition Rahul Gandhi’s June 4 visit to Haryana, the first after the Congress’ surprise and unexpected defeat in the October 2024 Assembly polls, has set the ball rolling for the revamp of the faction-ridden party in the state.

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In fact, during his over three-hour deliberations with senior leaders, part of the “Sangathan Srujan Abhiyan”, a campaign aimed at internal party rejuvenation, Rahul was both honest and forthright. By acknowledging before the Congress top brass that internal factionalism has stalled organisational restructuring for over 11 years, Rahul delivered a strong message to the party bigwigs to keep differences aside to help rebuild the party organisation.

The one-point agenda of the twin meetings was the upcoming elections of 22 District Congress Committee (DCC) presidents, a vital link between the party leadership and grassroots workers. Senior leaders were told in no uncertain terms to “to keep in check their inflated egos”, respect party discipline and refrain from airing grievances publicly. Otherwise be prepared to face the music, this was Rahul’s loud and clear message.

With nepotism ruling the roost in the Congress over the years, the grand old party has turned the new leaf in the election to the DCC presidents. In a first, it has set up a new institutional mechanism under which it is conducting election purely on merit from a grass-roots level workers. Under the new system, the Congress has appointed 22 AICC observers and 90 PCC observers to supervise the election process. Till 2014, the DCC presidents were hand-picked by the state unit chief and the Leader of the Congress Legislature Party, leaving a lot of discretion with two leaders, large-scale nepotism and ultimately throwing merit out of window.

Now, after consultations with the district-level leaders, the observers will prepare a panel of six leaders in the age group of 35-55 for each district with the entire election process to set to be completed by June 30. In fact, the observers have already taken feedback from grassroots workers in Kurukshetra and Ambala districts.

“The election of the DCC chiefs after taking feedback from the grassroots workers portends well for the Congress. It will go a long way in rejuvenating the Congress and help it play the role of a constructive Opposition in a more effective way,” Aftab Ahmed, Nuh MLA, asserted.

Rampant factionalism has proved to be Congress’ Achilles’ heels over the years with the party paying a heavy price in the October 2024 Assembly elections, in which it was favourite to win the elections. However, the BJP sprang a surprise by winning 48 seats as against 37 by the Congress in the 90-member Haryana Assembly.

Though former CM Bhupinder Singh Hooda is the tallest Haryana Congress leader with a majority of Congress MLA owing allegiance to him, his leadership has constantly been challenged by senior leaders and MPs like Kumari Selja and Randeep Surjewala. In the backdrop of the factionalism, the party high command has failed to name the CLP leader for the past over eight months. The new transparent and merit-based DCC election system seems to be good on paper. But will the Congress’ state satraps fall in line and sink their differences for the larger cause of Congress unity is yet to be seen?