Congress spokespersons have been going out of the way to highlight the impressive Punjab victory, the credit for which goes entirely to Captain Amarinder Singh, the most formidable regional leader left in the organisation. Cadres and supporters of the party have little hesitation in acknowledging that it was a “Amarinder versus the Rest” contest in Punjab and there was no way, anyone else including Navjot Singh Sidhu, could take credit for it.
In fact, by achieving the spectacular win against all odds, Amarinder could well emerge as the most eminent and acceptable face to lead the party, be it at the national level. As the depleted number of workers looks at ways and means of resuscitating the Congress, his is the only name which comes to the fore, since he has the thundering and extraordinary ability of taking all opponents head on. It would be another issue if the Captain chooses not to expand the sphere and spectrum of his activities beyond Punjab, but he has emerged as the sole hope for the party cadre.
It is not without a reason that a bid is being made to make it appear that the Punjab outcome was due to the collective effort of the high command and the state leaders and Sidhu, who has had a troubled and tenuous relationship with the Chief Minister designate, has gone out of the way to give credit to Rahul and Priyanka since they played a major role in his induction. Stories are being planted in sections of the media regarding the possibility of a Deputy Chief Minister in the state, despite the fact that the verdict has clearly been inspired by the pain-staking campaign of the Captain, easily the tallest leader to succeed Parkash Singh Badal to the coveted office.
The Congress is facing an unprecedented crisis. In public perception, its top leadership is incapable of delivering and thus is seen to be tainted, though no wrongdoing has been established in any court of law. There has been no self-analysis on even the 2014 debacle, following which a large number of workers and leaders had deserted the party. The BJP has been the beneficiary of these defections from the Congress and it is partly because of them that the saffron flag is flying in Haryana, Assam, Jharkhand and now in high mast in Uttarakhand.
In Uttarakhand, it was apparently Priyanka’s decision to exclusively back Harish Rawat without taking into account the reasons for Vijay Bahuguna, Harak Singh Rawat, Narayan Dutt Tewari, Sat Pal Maharaj, Yashpal Arya amongst others to switch sides and lend a hand in winning of the BJP. In the Lok Sabha polls as well, the BJP had exploited the fissures in the Congress to lure many Congressmen into its fold, with Jagdambika Pal being the most prominent. In Assam, it was Himanta Biswa Sharma who felt let down and in Haryana, Chaudhury Birendra Singh and Rao Inderjit led the exodus to the Sangh Parivar.
There have been many angled opinions expressed by top Congress leaders regarding looking at the party beyond the Gandhis, but vested interests have succeeded in stifling the views. The decision of the leadership to enter into an alliance with the Samajwadi Party has further hurt the organisation more than it was every anticipated. The Congress contested on 105 seats. Effectively, it meant that there was no party activity in 298 constituencies, forcing workers there to either join the BJP, BSP or the Samajwadi Party.
Over the past ten years, the Congress has showed signs of deviating from its established ideology of secularism. Instead of giving equal importance and weight to all sections, the party in public perception had tilted heavily towards the minorities, thereby earning the ire of the majority community. In addition, the Congress under Sonia Gandhi had altered the established norms, such as one man one post which made the Congress president as the sole exception and the rule of not giving Rajya Sabha tickets to candidates defeated in the Lok Sabha polls.
The party’s functioning drew criticism from the fact that instead of grooming leaders from within the organisation, outsiders from other parties were given significant positions, though they were unfamiliar with the Congress terrain and functioning. The examples of Madhusudan Mistry, Mohan Prakash, Sanjay Nirupam, Renuka Chowdhury, Rashid Alvi, Rasheed Masood, Shankar Sinh Vaghela are only indicative of the fact that Congressmen were being overlooked.
In the recent polls, the 132-year-old party chose to engage the services of Prashant Kishor, a political mercenary who had offered his ministrations to Narendra Modi and Nitish Kumar in the past. Crores were doled out to him to formulate a no-win strategy in Uttar Pradesh. In the process, the party has got fewer seats in UP than it did in a small state like Uttarakhand. In Punjab, he tried his hand but it was Amarinder Singh’s election all the way.
The latest outcome will bring to surface fault lines in the organisation, which has not been overhauled for 19 years coinciding with Sonia Gandhi’s appointment as the Congress president on 14 March 1998.
By nature, the Congress president has been a status quoist and has allowed the same set of aides and advisers to continue throughout her tenure, without realising that vested interests had taken over. Ironically, it is her team which has played the biggest role in undermining Rahul Gandhi. It is another matter that the vice president has shown no signs of empathising with the cadres in order to revive the organisation.
The 2017 Assembly elections would make it imperative for the Congress to look for a change of leadership. The present set up with the Gandhis as the nucleus and sycophants, lawyers and fixers in the periphery is unlikely to yield results. The Congress has a vote base sufficient to make it a player in more than 110 Parliamentary constituencies. However, it does not have the leadership to take it beyond even the 44 the party had won in 2014.
If this status quo is maintained, the numbers would further dwindle and the workers would abandon the ship for greener pastures.