All India Congress Committee (AICC) general secretary and former Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Digvijaya Singh, who is regarded as the political mentor of Congress’ vice president Rahul Gandhi, talked to The Sunday Guardian. Excerpts:
Q. What is ailing the Congress Party?
A. Nothing is ailing the Congress. Unfortunately, the party has not been able to successfully counter the Hindutva agenda of the BJP. We have not been able to convince the people that the BJP’s agenda is a hardline communal one and not development as they have been trying to project. We have organisational weaknesses. Second, Congress is not a cadre based party. Third, we have not been able to build an effective regional leadership. Fourth, we have to develop an organisational structure in which elections are held regularly in the block Congress Committee, the district Congress Committee, the Pradesh Congress Committee, the AICC working committee. That apart, we have a strong leader in Sonia Gandhi and Rahul Gandhi is our vice president. He has got all the political instincts, but unfortunately the decision making process is rather slow and that puts us a little behind the BJP.
Also the BJP and the RSS have the expertise in spreading rumour. Earlier, it used to be done through word of mouth, now it is being done through a very effective social media. Their social media team is 10 times larger than ours, and it spreads rumours and all kinds of false figures. Information is fed into social media sources like WhatsApp, Twitter, Facebook. They are putting a huge money in preparing an army of trolls. Swati Chaturvedi in her book has talked about the troll army of the BJP. Recently, Newslaundry did a story on how they used social media in the UP campaign.
Q. You said that that regional leadership is lagging in the Congress. You were perhaps the last strong regional leader and after you, no strong regional leader, especially in Madhya Pradesh, has come up. What is the reason behind that?
A. I think a lot of people were sent there (MP) but they failed to emerge as an effective challenger to Shivraj Singh Chouhan. There is no shortage of issues there—corruption, incompetence, mis-governance, law and order, Vyapam. But the Congress has not been able to take these issues to the masses.
Q. What about the lack of regional leaders in the party in other states?
A. We have to build a regional leadership. We have done well whereever there is a strong regional leadership. In Karnataka, we have a very strong regional leader in Siddaramaiah. In Punjab, we have Captain Amarinder Singh. In Himachal Pradesh,we have a very strong leader in Virbhadra Singh and among the younger leaders, Sachin Pilot is there. These leaders have to be built up.
Q. In 2004, the BJP was represented by Murli Manohar Joshi, Jaswant Singh, Yashwant Sinha and the Congress was represented by Ambika Soni, Sushil Kumar Shinde etc. While all the said BJP leaders are now “retired”, their Congress counterparts continue to be the face of the party in 2017. Do you think that new leaders are not coming up in the Congress?
A. There is no shortage of young leaders in the Congress and I have been saying this for a long time that the AICC needs a change and younger people have to be brought in. Now, the Congress president has given full authority to Rahul Gandhi. He should act decisively.
Q. You are saying Rahul Gandhi should act decisively. This is his 13th year in active politics. How long is the Congress willing to give him a chance?
A. Well, the Nehru-Gandhi family is the greatest binding factor for the Congress. I think this is where the Congress has to look at as far as the leadership is concerned. There is nothing wrong with the leadership of Rahul Gandhi. Only that he has to act more decisively.
Q. So are you saying that there is no alternative to the Gandhi family?
A. No, we are not looking at any alternative. If anyone wants to challenge Rahul Gandhi, he is free to do so, there is no problem.
Q. A.K. Antony had submitted a report in 2014…
A. That report was discussed among the senior leaders of the party and Rahul Gandhi sat through the meetings. This was then sent to the Pradesh and District Congress Committees. They held wider consultations and the reports have been submitted to Rahul Gandhi in February 2015 on the basis of which action is to be taken. We are awaiting that action.
Q. It is said that corruption during UPA-II was the main issue which led to the defeat of the Congress. Your comments.
A. No, the perception of corruption. Corruption was not of that magnitude as it was projected to be. But we lost in the perception war.
Q. So are you saying that there was no substantive corruption?
A. Yes, not among the Congress. Among the allies there were issues.
Q. Is the Congress overdoing minority appeasement due to which…?
A. …there is no question of any minority appeasement or majority appeasement. We have followed a line where a poor man , irrespective of whether he is a Hindu or from the minority community or from the Scheduled Castes, Scheduled Tribes, is our first priority and we believe they have the first right on the resources of India. This minority appeasement phrase is a cliché which has been used by the BJP to defame us. We have been fighting communal Hindus and Muslims together. In fact, in Madhya Pradesh, I had taken strong action against communal Hindus and communal Muslims—communal Bajrang Dal on one side and SIMI on the other side. We are neither with the extreme right wing Hindu fundamentalists nor with the right wing Muslim fundamentalists. We are a secular, liberal modern setup.
Q. But people are not voting for you.
A. You can’t say that people are not voting for us. We won in Punjab; we were the single largest party in Goa and Manipur. In UP, after the demolition of Babri Masjid and the 1996 alliance with the BSP, we have not been able to really take off, although we did well in the 2009 general elections when we got 22 seats.
Q. Senior leaders are leaving. S.M. Krishna is the latest.
A. S.M. Krishna has got everything from the Congress. At 85, he may join the margdarshak mandal of the BJP. What will the BJP give him that the Congress has not given him?
Q. His complaint was that Rahul Gandhi does not give audience to party leaders.
A. This is incorrect. If people think that Rahul Gandhi is not accessible then they should have the guts to speak out openly. I have no problem in meeting with Rahul Gandhi.