Congress to ‘re-launch’ itself at AICC Gujarat session

Having faced successive poll debacles, the Congress is expected to ‘re-launch’ itself during the upcoming All India Congress Committee (AICC) session in Gujarat’s Ahmedabad, the event replete with symbolism.

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The AICC session is being held in Gujarat, where the party is visibly extinct and in the home of Prime Minister Narendra Modi. This will be the party’s first major session in Gujarat in 64 years. The occasion also marks the centenary year of the lone presidential term of Mahatma Gandhi and the 150^th birth anniversary of Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel.

The Congress Working Committee (CWC) will meet at the Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel Memorial in Shahibaug on April 8, while the main AICC session will take place on the banks of Sabarmati on April 9.

Party insiders, speaking anonymously, believe that choosing Patel’s birth anniversary and Gandhi’s centenary is an attempt to reclaim the legacies that have long been appropriated by the BJP, especially in Gujarat. Over the past decade, the BJP has leveraged Patel’s image often in contrast to the Congress narrative.

As Gujarat is slated to go for polls in 2027, many in Congress believe that focus on Patel may again entice the Patidar community in the state to the party. The party’s implementation of Kshatriya, Harijan, Adivasi, Muslim (KHAM) social engineering in 1985 had not been taken well by the community.

The party’s support base in upper castes has waned for it, many insiders believe. They say the party could do little when the saffron party led by PM Modi and Home Minister Amit Shah launched an aggressive campaign to sever Patel’s Congress legacy and capitalise on his farmer background.

However, the party leaders refuse to attach such significance to the event on record.

Senior Congress leader and former Union Minister Salman Khurshid said, “We are not doing this in reaction. We are consistent with our legacy.  Sardar Vallabhai Patel was part of building modern India and worked closely with Pandit Nehru. If the BJP tries to appropriate somebody like Ambedkar or Patel, that is their choice. We are consistent with our legacy. It is what we have always believed in.”

On the Congress’ focus towards the Patidar community, Khurshid said today’s India sees people voting in group identities.

“We must deal with these identities equitably and faithfully. That is in line with Rahul Gandhi’s leadership in pitching for a caste census.”

Congress insiders believe that holding the session in Gujarat hass also to do with “Modi narrative”.

“Gujarat is a very vibrant, active political stage. Today, Gujarat is claimed by Modi as his launchpad for having reached Delhi,” a senior party leader told The Tribune.

“It has been claimed as a launchpad for many past movements that have supported Congress. We are going back to the drawing board to see how we can relaunch ourselves from here,” said the leader.