New Delhi: The way the Congress high command sees it, the party has executed a master stroke in Punjab. According to sources, a survey conducted in August indicated that the Congress would not make a comeback under the leadership of the then Chief Minister, Captain Amarinder Singh. Rahul Gandhi himself reached out to several MLAs asking them if they were happy with the Captain. (This level of interaction rarely happens within the Congress, but so keen was his incentive to remove the Captain that Rahul made time for this reach-out.) The feedback apparently went (or was choreographed just so?) against the then Chief Minister. And so via a midnight call for a Congress Legislature Party (CLP) meeting, the Captain was given a message from the high command.
Being a veteran player, he understood all too well this sudden call for a meeting of his legislators, dialled Sonia Gandhi, expressed his sense of humiliation and threatened to resign. Without skipping a beat, she agreed. Later we were told that Sonia Gandhi was not on board with this move, but both her children were adamant that the Captain had to go.
Not just removed but also humiliated it seems. That is what has got most of the Congress, especially the G23 up in arms, but more on that later. To force the Captain out, the Gandhi siblings used his bête noire Navjot Singh Sidhu, promoting him as the PCC chief. But they were smart enough not to make him the Chief Minister. Instead, a Dalit leader and a Congressman of some standing, Charanjit Singh Channi was made the CM. At a time when both the AAP and the BJP spoke of promoting a Dalit Sikh as their CM face and the SAD tied up with the BSP with an eye on the 32% Dalit vote in the state, the Congress went ahead and beat them in this game of votes. Later when Sidhu sulked, neither Rahul nor Priyanka rushed to placate him. Instead, he was told that his tantrum was a state subject and the Chief Minister was asked to handle him. Neither did Channi rush to Patiala, but waited at the Punjab Bhavan in Chandigarh for Sidhu to call on him. Hence, one could argue that Sidhu was used to neutralise the Captain and once he was out, Sidhu was sidelined in favour of a Dalit leader. Even Sidhu knows that should the Congress retain Punjab there is no way Channi will be asked to step aside in his favour. Having burnt his bridges with the BJP, SAD and the AAP, the one-time stand-up comic is running out of gigs.
All this is very well but what has not gone down well is the way a popular Chief Minister was humiliated and ousted. Surely, there were neater ways to convince the Captain to step aside. The Congress of old would have deputed Ahmed Patel for the job. In a post-Ahmed Patel world, there are enough leaders from the G23 who have the political heft and savvy and who could have been deployed. The problem is that Rahul doesn’t trust any of them. That is the crux of G23 complaint against the Congress leadership (read, Rahul Gandhi). As Kapil Sibal pointed out, those who were close to them (the Gandhis) have left the party, while those who are not close (G23) are standing by them. Rahul Gandhi has not been known to choose his team wisely. Even during his early days, he opted for “outsiders” like Mohan Prakash, Madhusudan Mistry and Beni Prasad Verma to party veterans. Or else he preferred to hang out with young dynasts like himself.
Now again, in his effort to build a “New Congress” Rahul is wooing outsiders like Kanhaiya Kumar. His message to the disgruntled older guard is—those who want to leave can go. Again this was a strategy that Indira Gandhi used against the Syndicate in 1969. Can Rahul pull off a similar revamp? How many leaders and workers can he replace in his effort to build a new version of the CPI? It reminds one of that light bulb advertisement when the housewife proudly says, “Saare Badal Diye” (have changed all the bulbs). The housewife at least opted for a newer, trendier model of bulbs. Here Rahul is harking back to a 1971 Garibi Hatao slogan to help him woo the voters of 2021. Then again hardly surprising when you consider that Rahul looks to NGOs and JNU think-tanks for political strategy, with Sitaram Yechury as his mentor-in-chief.
Which brings us back to the letter writers and the support that they seem to be getting from other Congress leaders such as P. Chidambaram. It won’t be as easy for Rahul to write off these leaders as it was for Prime Minister Narendra Modi to consign his party elders to a “marg darshak mandal”. And it’s not just the G23 that is concerned. As is clear from Kapil Sibal’s dinner, other Opposition leaders are also worried about Rahul’s ability to revive the Congress. Since there is a direct fight between the BJP and the Congress in around 200 Lok Sabha seats, it is imperative that the Congress gets its act together if PM Modi is to be defeated. With little faith in Rahul’s ability to counter PM Modi, there are two options before the Opposition (and restive Congress leaders). Speaking on the NewsX-Sunday Guardian Roundtable, former Rajya Sabha MP, Pavan Varma felt that most Congress leaders would quit the Congress and opt for other more viable options such as the Trinamool Congress, which is fast emerging as “the new Congress”, as Mamata Banerjee is expanding her base beyond West Bengal. The other option, proffered by Dr Sanjaya Baru (again, on the Roundtable) was that the Congress needs exactly the opposite strategy of what Indira Gandhi did in 1969, i.e., not getting rid of people but bringing back those who have left, whether it’s a Sharad Pawar, a Mamata Banerjee or a Jagan Reddy. There are a lot of Congressmen (and women) who are still secular in their orientation but who left the party because of various reasons. Most would agree that today if there is one Opposition leader who can take on the BJP with some credibility, it is Mamata Banerjee. What she needs is a pan India cadre. While what the Congress needs is a credible leader who can take on PM Modi’s BJP. It seems a natural fit; how the twain meet is another matter.