The process of anointing Rahul Gandhi as Congress president has been set in motion. Though being termed as an election, there is little doubt that the transformation in India’s oldest political party is a mere formality. State party units have begun the process of passing resolutions seeking his elevation as the chief replacing his mother, Sonia Gandhi, who has been at the helm since 1998. The succession is being termed as an election and it has been announced that if anyone contests, then a formal voting may take place. The transition is expected to be smooth, but there are rough edges that are all too visible.
Diplomat-turned-politician Mani Shankar Aiyar has been gruff: last weekend he told the media in the hill resort of Solan, “I think only two people can be Congress president—mother or son. Rahul has already said he is ready to contest the election. To contest election people are required. If there’s no one and there’s only one candidate, how will you conduct the election in the first place?” Aiyar is no dissident. His proximity to the Nehru-Gandhi family parachuted him into the thick of politics. His boorish comment displays the despondency prevailing in Congress. Aiyar has spelt out what many others are murmuring.
Despite the downturn in its fortunes and its dwindling presence in elected bodies at the national, state and even local body levels, Congress remains the only nationwide political organisation, while BJP is swiftly increasing its footprint in regions where it was nonexistent before coming to power on its own strength at the Centre in May 2014. Many regional leaders—ministers and Pradesh Congress presidents included—have drifted to the BJP in the past three years. They have been rewarded handsomely. The BJP governments both at the Centre and in the states today are not “pure” Sangh Parivar teams. BJP has emerged as the party of governance, the aim which was set for it by Lal Krishna Advani when he became the party president in 1986. Congress, its double-digit presence in Lok Sabha notwithstanding, has emerged as the principal opposition.
Rahul Gandhi as Congress president will, therefore, have to endeavour to be the face of the non-BJP, non-NDA dispensation. In recent months, he has overcome his hiccups and has taken on the mantle of being the challenger seriously. The very fact that BJP went into an overdrive post his speeches in the US is evidence of the efficacy of his transformation. While Rahul campaigned in Gujarat, the BJP top brass attacked him in his home turf, Amethi. This again can be seen as a sign of Rahul emerging from the dark clouds that engulfed him since he was trumpeted as the heir-apparent in a meeting of AICC functionaries in Jaipur in the beginning of 2013.
Narendra Modi too emerged as heir-apparent in BJP (though not in filial terms, as in case of Rahul) in 2013, when, spurred by RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat, the Sangh Parivar decided to put its bets on him, rather than on the aged and experienced Advani. Unlike Modi, Rahul was a reluctant starter. And the result of his stuttering was all too evident when Modi swept to power and went on to consolidate his supremacy not only at the Centre but in state after state in successive Vidhan Sabha elections. Rahul has thus begun his present phase in life in a situation in which due to his dillydallying since 2013, he has conceded intrinsic advantage to Modi.
Rahul will have three litmus tests. Himachal Pradesh election will be the first. Unlike Bihar or UP, the contest in Himachal is a straight faceoff between Congress and BJP. The challenge in Gujarat will be the second. And most crucially later in Karnataka he will have to ensure that Congress does not lose its turf. He had campaigned hard in UP in 2007, 2012 and again in 2017. Will he be able to produce results in his present campaign in Gujarat where he is as vigorous as he was in UP? This will determine how things shape in 2019.
The enormity of the task ahead for Rahul can be gauged from the results of local bodies’ elections in Maharashtra and Gujarat which came in past week. These are states where unlike UP, Tamil Nadu or West Bengal, Congress has formidable presence organisationally. In Maharashtra gram panchayat poll, BJP tally of 1,457 was more than double of the combined tally of Congress (301), NCP (194) and Shiv Sena (222). The municipal corporation election results were likewise. In Gujarat, BJP won six local bodies out of the eight where elections were held.
Rahul may like to study the ascendancy of his uncle, Sanjay Gandhi, with whom dynastic politics took root in Congress. (Indira Gandhi was elected Congress president in 1959 during her father’s lifetime, but did not succeed Jawaharlal Nehru as PM. She was elected in January 1966, post Lal Bahadur Shastri. She defeated Morarji Desai then and again a year later, in 1967 in open parliamentary party polls in which stalwarts sided with Desai.) Sanjay was invited by Indian Youth Congress under Ambika Soni to be a member of its National Council in December 1975. At the Guwahati session in November 1976, where Indira Gandhi announced “the youth have stolen our thunder”, Sanjay sat on the dais wearing a ceremonial lapel badge which just bore the words “Shri Sanjay Gandhi” (others specified designations such as president, secretary, member national council, etcetera). It was not a designation, but his mere personality which catapulted Sanjay to the centre stage of party leadership.
Rahul has been an office bearer since 2007 and the heir apparent since January 2013. Will his elevation as Congress president enthuse Congress organisation and bring it back to the mainstream of nation’s political discourse?