Sycophancy will not be of any help for the party in its fight to stage a comeback.
NEW DELHI: There seems to be no end to the problems for the Congress. While the Gandhis are already facing ED probe, the party’s plan for presidential and vice-presidential elections also ended in a fiasco. What embarrassed the Congress was that the parties on whose recommendation it supported Yashwant Sinha, were the first to desert the opposition bloc after NDA named Droupadi Murmu. The situation was such that even Congress MLAs cross-voted. As a result, Murmu registered the biggest ever victory to become the first tribal President of India.
After this, questions were raised over Margaret Alva as Congress’ pick for vice presidential poll. What surprised everyone was how Sonia Gandhi green-lighted Alva who has been vocal against the Gandhis. Then came a shocker from Mamata Banerjee’s TMC’s decision to abstain during the upcoming vice-presidential polls.
In fact, polls for President and Vice President were for testing opposition unity. But the opposition remained divided as a result of NDA’s political move in Presidential polls and Congress’ mistake in upcoming vice-presidential polls. The BJP’s strategy to isolate Congress in the opposition bloc has succeeded to a great extent. The partners are not relying that much on Congress now due mainly to its several electoral defeats so far. Even small political outfits are distancing from the grand old party now.
However, some Congress leaders are still hopeful of the party’s come-back in future, on the lines of what had happened in 1977 when Indira Gandhi had made a glorious comeback after humiliating defeat. But what they ignore is that the Congress at present has no leader matching Indira’s calibre and charisma. What is a reality is that disintegration started in the Congress after Indira’s death only. Congress did get a brutal majority of 400 seats as a result of sympathy following Indira’s assassination in 1984. But in all the elections ever since, the grand old party never got a majority on its own. After Rajiv Gandhi’s assassination in 1991, the Congress witnessed more disintegration, with just a few leaders controlling the organisation. Seven years after her husband Rajiv’s death, Sonia Gandhi took the charge of the party but she chose the path of coalition politics. The coalition politics helped Congress form government for ten years in 2004. But it turned out to be counterproductive for the Congress itself, as its partners who enjoyed power left it. Congress continued to get weakened since the formation of the Modi government in 2014. But the Gandhi family remains ignorant of the fact that the party cannot fight back without an able army. The party’s hold in the states is dwindling, with Congress leaders continuing to close their eyes to the factors responsible for this. What they are not ready to understand is that only sycophancy of the Gandhis cannot bring success. What they need to realise is that the times have changed. The new generation does not have any sympathy for the Gandhi family unlike during the period of Indira Gandhi. What is needed now is a strong organization with an equally strong alliance.
Apart from lack of public sympathy for the Gandhi family, the post of UPA chairperson and Rahul Gandhi are the main reasons for the Congress being isolated in the opposition. Bengal CM Mamata Banerjee had tried to form a strong alliance a year ago with the proposal that the UPA head post should go to a non-Gandhi leader. She proposed her own name, Sharad Pawar or any other non-Gandhi leader of Congress. But the Congress did not agree, and insisted on Rahul’s name. Rahul’s leadership was not acceptable to Mamata, Akhilesh Yadav and several other leaders. UPA’s new ally, Shiv Sena, which is fighting for its own existence, also pitched for a new face. But strategists of Congress believe that only Gandhi family can help revive the party. It was at the behest of these strategists that a massive protest was staged against ED questioning of Rahul and Sonia. The countrywide protest against interrogation of a party’s head has never been seen before. What remains to be seen is whether this kind of protest will help Congress politically or not.
But several questions are being raised now. First, why could Congress not get support from other allies for UPA chairperson Sonia Gandhi? If the partners had also hit the streets the message could have been stronger.
Second, will the protest not harm Congress at a time when BJP is winning polls raising the issue of dynastic politics? Rather, Congress would have benefited immensely if the protest had been against corruption, inflation and unemployment. But Congress leaders, instead of hitting the streets, prefer to raise these issues on Twitter only. Congress’ former boss Rahul Gandhi himself relies more on tweets, while choosing to raise the issue orally only during Parliamentary proceedings.