A defeat as devastating as the one the Congress suffered in the recent general elections in almost any other major political party around the world would have called for a change in leadership. But not in the 128-year-old organisation that brought freedom to India 67 years ago.
“Any change that is contemplated,” a former Union Minister, echoing colleagues, said, “has to be made within the limitations of the dynastic framework. The party has no option but to be led by the Nehru-Gandhis, just as the BJP cannot afford to cut the umbilical cord with the RSS.”
This belief was visible at the Congress Working Committee’s first meeting after the elections. Party president Sonia Gandhi and vice-president Rahul Gandhi offered to step down; the CWC members, predictably, not only rejected the suggestion but even refused to discuss it. The tone thus set, there was no question of anyone “candidly and fearlessly” — as Ms Gandhi urged in her speech that day — speaking his or her mind.
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But at a subsequent Youth Congress meeting, a majority bluntly told Mr. Gandhi that his efforts to “democratise” the Youth Congress had only paralysed it. His response? At best, the election system he had set up could be tweaked a bit, but there would be no major change.
Outside structured party forums, there has been criticism, if obliquely: first, ex-south Mumbai MP Milind Deora tweeted his anguish, saying Mr. Gandhi’s advisers didn’t have their “ears to the ground” and those with “no electoral experience were calling the shots.”
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Former Union Minister Kishore Chandra Deo trained his guns at the old guard: “The Grand Old Party,” he said needed to be “emancipated” from the clutches of “rootless wonders and spineless creepers who have held sway for more than two decades and brought the party to such a pass.”
More recently, party general secretary Digvijaya Singh said Mr. Gandhi was “by temperament not a ruler (but)… someone who wants to fight injustice.” Later, he was forced to amend that to say that he hadn’t questioned Mr. Gandhi’s leadership abilities, but only pointed out that he wasn’t hankering for power.
Rebuilding the party But if public criticism of Mr. Gandhi has been muted, in private conversations it has been scathing. One young leader told this writer, “Rahul should stay away from public view for at least two years,” much in the way Prime Minister Narendra Modi adopted a low profile in the decade after the Gujarat riots, before re-emerging on the national stage once those dark memories had faded.
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In their meetings with Ms Gandhi after the elections, party members have told her to postpone the planned post-poll transition of power to Mr. Gandhi; she should stay in charge and rebuild a relationship with party workers that Mr. Gandhi’s inaccessibility has adversely affected. Ms Gandhi has not responded directly to this suggestion, but many regulars at 10 Janpath report that she no longer says, “You must talk to Rahul also.”
If Mr. Gandhi’s determination not to change his style of functioning or his advisers has gone down badly, his refusal to take on the job of Congress leader in the Lok Sabha has left party workers despondent.
Peep into the Lok Sabha on any working day in the ongoing session of Parliament. Seated in the front row of the Opposition benches is Ms Gandhi, ramrod straight, alert, determined, urging her depleted band of MPs to make their point, even enter the Well of the House, an unthinkable style in the late 1990s when she first entered politics as an Opposition leader. But the inheritor, Rahul Gandhi, if he is in the House, sits slouched in a back row, detached from the proceedings.
Mr. Gandhi’s spin doctors, of course, say he is working far away from the arc lights. They describe the party’s Scheduled Caste cell’s efforts to try and build a new Dalit leadership, as the Bahujan Samaj Party is on the wane as a possible comeback vehicle.
Difficulty in decision-making The party’s still being in transition mode has also made decision-making difficult. A case in point was the call to replace Assam Chief Minister Tarun Gogoi — it saw a clash between Ms Gandhi’s advisers who felt it was time to get a new Chief Minister, while Mr Gandhi backed Mr. Gogoi and won in the end, but largely because chief dissident Himanta Biswa Sarma tried to force a change by resigning as Minister. The delay didn’t just embolden the dissidents; it also undermined Mr. Gogoi.
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The Congress had hoped that after the results Mr. Gandhi would head the party in Parliament and appoint his own team outside, and the old guard would gradually fade away. No one expected the party to win, so it would be a role in the Opposition.
But the party has fared far worse than the most pessimistic in its ranks imagined, and Mr. Gandhi is neither leaving the stage — nor taking it.
Party veterans, recalling the Congress’ humiliating post-Emergency defeat in 1977, say Sanjay Gandhi came under similar fire within the party. They point out that despite that, Indira Gandhi was back in power in 1980. But they overlook the fact that Sanjay Gandhi, reviled or admired, had proved his leadership qualities and that Indira Gandhi was a mass leader. Rahul Gandhi, on the other hand, is yet to earn his spurs, and Ms Gandhi, after a magnificent 16 years at the helm, has run out of ideas.
Equally significant, with this election, is that it is no longer Congress versus the rest; it is now the >BJP versus the rest . The Congress leadership has no option but to make common cause with like-minded parties if it wants to take on the BJP.
It won’t be easy for the Congress to address its crisis of credibility, circumventing the shortcomings of its impossible-to-change leadership.
“The Congress needn’t re-invent itself,” a former Cabinet Minster says, “But Rahul Gandhi must re-brand himself. Earlier he took his position for granted; now he must fight to keep it.”
Mr. Gandhi must respond to that call.
smita.g@thehindu.co.in
