‘Motionless’ Congress wants others to build a ‘movement’ for it

Grand old party in search of a person who could build agitation like Anna, Ramdev.

New Delhi: The Congress is said to be in search of someone who could launch a big movement like Anna Hazare and Swami Ramdev. In fact, the grand old party wants a massive campaign to be built up against the Narendra Modi government just like some non-political agitations happened during the UPA-II regime.

It is common knowledge that the movement by Anna Hazare and Ramdev had RSS backing. But they were dubbed as non-political movements.

However, the movements politically benefited both the BJP and the AAP. Both the movements were against corruption, price rise and issues related with the common man. The same issues are dominating the political discourse at present as well. But the Opposition is unable to build up any movement on these issues. The only attempt that was seen recently was that Congress’ interim president Sonia Gandhi constituted an eight-member committee under Digvijay Singh’s leadership to frame the strategy against the government on the issues concerning the common people. This panel includes Priyanka Gandhi Vadra as well. Earlier, Sonia had also held a meeting with some Opposition party leaders.

Now, the new committee will formulate a strategy to hold an agitation against the government, which will be held from 20 September to 30 September. However, there is less possibility of this movement making a big impact then. The agitations organized earlier could not have made any impact. The committee is expected to come up with a strategy in a week.

The biggest weakness of the Congress is that it does not have a strong organisation like BJP. The saffron party has strong frontal organisations. The front organisations of the Congress are in a bad shape. Interestingly, the Mahila Congress national president has left the party. Seva Dal is also not functioning well. Moreover, the Youth Congress leaves a lot to be desired. The leadership never focused on improving the functioning of the main organisation. Similarly, state organisations are also in shambles. The Congress units in Rajasthan, Haryana, Kerala, Madhya Pradesh and Punjab are facing infighting.

The 2024 Lok Sabha elections will be quite crucial for the Congress. The leadership knows that the miserable performance in next Parliamentary polls will cause material damage to the party. Seniors have already alerted the leadership to this threat. This is the reason why 222 Congressmen left the party in the last seven years. This exodus included 177 MPs and MLAs. If defeats continue, then other seniors may also part ways with the Congress. Now, Sonia Gandhi has somehow got into action. Veteran party leader Digvijaya Singh has been given the responsibility to plan an agitation. Singh is said to have good relations with all the groups in the party as well as the Opposition leaders. Political stalwarts Mamata Banerjee and Sharad Pawar respect Singh.

The party is said to have decided to contact the NGOs which are against the government’s policies. Similarly, the party is also looking for persons who command some influence among the people, and the public trusts them like Anna Hazare and Ramdev. Congress is supporting the farmers’ agitation. But the agitation looks to be directionless. Farmers’ leaders cannot be trusted. The agitation against the farm laws seems to have shifted focus on other issues and taken political overtones. Congress feels that the farmers’ movement is losing steam. So, the party wants a movement to be built up to which the common people also get connected apart from farmers.  Most of the issues such as price rise, alleged corruption, unemployment, etc. are the same which had been raised during the UPA government. If a big movement could be built up on these issues, then a challenge could be posed to the Modi government.