By Saroj Nagi
New Delhi: It’s been exactly a month since the Congress got its worst ever drubbing in the national elections and its leaders do not as yet see any silver lining in the dark and menacing clouds swarming over their heads.
But within days of promising her constituents in Rae Bareli on 13 June that she will lead the party’s revival from the front, Congress president Sonia Gandhi has intensified her interaction with party leaders in trying to figure out how to make the party claw its way back into the reckoning.
Sonia and Rahul Gandhi in a file photo. AFP
While she remains unclear on how to go about it, the workers are clear that they want her and not Rahul at the helm unless he is part of the Priyanka-Sonia-Rahul triad in that order.
Sonia gets active
Since the shocker of 44 seats was delivered on 16 May, Sonia has been meeting leaders and workers, with the queues lengthening outside her door by the day. On Tuesday, for instance, the line included the likes of Ambika Soni, Vilas Muttemwar, Raj Babbar, Shruti Chaudhary, all of whom lost the Lok Sabha elections, as well as state leaders like former Rajasthan chief minister Ashok Gehlot who presided over the party’s worst ever defeat at the hands of the BJP in his state in December 2013.
"Her mornings are now devoted to such interactions," said a Congress member who continues to place his faith on Sonia who had revamped the party’s image, appeal and priorities to bring it to power at the head of its first coalition at the Centre in 2004 and repeated the feat in 2009. The big question is whether she will be able to do so again this time given the fact that she is 67 years old, has to go for check-ups for an undisclosed illness and is blinded by her motherly love to hand over the reins of the 129-year-old party to her son Rahul despite his many limitations in leading the party from the front.
Almost every leader who called on her recently has urged a brainstorming session — a chintan shivir — to find a way out of the current morass in which the workers are despondent and demoralised and the leadership faces a crisis of charisma, confidence, credibility and acceptability.
"There should be introspection at the local, regional and state levels as well at the central level. There should be a CWC and an AICC meeting to discuss the steps needed to improve the situation. There must be some hulchul, some activity to involve the workers and take their minds off the defeat. But such a meeting should not be a knee jerk reaction but must also lead to some substantive outcomes," said a senior leader who had met Sonia.
Rahul fails to transform himself
But his request for a meeting with vice president Rahul Gandhi has gone unanswered even after a week, reinforcing the impression that the Amethi MP has not changed much despite the 2014 rout and continues to remain inaccessible and unapproachable. Perhaps because of this, some leaders have chosen to write extensive notes to him on the party’s failings and offered suggestions for action.
"There has been no response," said one such leader who had sent off his letter immediately after the Lok Sabha results were out on 16 May and is now left wondering when Rahul would transform himself.
Those who consider themselves "lucky" to have met the young leader have sounded him out of the bleak future that lay ahead unless some drastic measures are taken.
Indeed, there is speculation that Rahul is perhaps one reason why Sonia may not set up an introspection committee this time even if she calls a Congress conclave. The reports of such introspection committees are not meant for public consumption but its contents may be leaked out which in the current context may not be palatable to the leadership.
For instance, after the AK Antony committee report which went into the 1999 debacle — when the Congress won 114 seats which seems a respectable figure now — identified Sonia’s foreign origins (along with the pulling down of the Vajpayee government) as among the reasons for the party’s defeat.
"Any introspection committee report this time could show Rahul’s leadership in poor light," said a leader, adding that this could intensify the anger brewing in the party over the vice president’s inability to inspire, lead or deliver. Ever since he began to occupy centre stage Rahul’s report card has been a litany of failures, ranging from the party’s losses in crucial states like Bihar, Uttar Pradesh, Gujarat, Punjab, Delhi, Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh or the 2014 rout.
Three post-poll developments
While there is no clarity within the party on what is to be done now, most leaders have taken heart from three likely post-poll scenarios emerging in the party.
One, the possibility that holding internal elections may be put on the back burner lest it intensify factionalism into an already fractious party which is still reeling from the adverse impact of the elections in which the 44-member Congress cannot even claim the position of leader of opposition status for its Lok Sabha leader M Kharge.
Soon after the results, some voices did call for elections to the CWC, the party’s highest decision making body, but this may not happen. As it is, Rahul’s controversial experiment of holding elections in the Youth Congress has brought in money power into an outfit that was intended to groom future talent.
Two, the old guard, for all its faults of setting up a coterie around Sonia, is back in the reckoning. Rahul’s elevation as general secretary, vice president and lead campaigner in 2014 had brought youngsters to the fore, often at the expense of the old guard who had either been shunted out as governors or asked to play second fiddle to those whom Rahul favoured. This included the appointment as state unit chiefs of youngsters like Arun Yadav in Madhya Pradesh, Ashok Tanwar in Haryana or Sachin Pilot in Rajasthan who are now being attacked by local leaders who were upstaged by those they had probably cradled in their arms. It also includes the likes of Mohan Prakash, who handled the party’s affairs in Maharashtra and Madhya Pradesh or Madhusudan Mistry who had unsuccessfully contested against Modi in Vadodara in Gujarat.
As a defeated candidate, Mistry for one is reviewing the party’s dismal performance in UP, the state he is in charge of. Out of the 80 seats in UP, the party could only win Sonia and Rahul’s Rae Bareli and Amethi constituencies while the BJP walked away with 71. Similar exercises are on in other states. Others like CP Joshi and Mohan Prakash were part of Rahul’s charmed circle.
Sonia has decided to invest in the old guard as witnessed in the elevation of Kharge and former Punjab chief minister Amarinder Singh as the leader and deputy leader in the Lok Sabha and Ghulam Nabi Azad as leader of opposition in the Rajya Sabha and Anand Sharma, as deputy leader in the Upper House.
But these appointments were made only after Sonia waited to see whether Rahul would take the responsibility of leading the party in the Lok Sabha. But handicapped by his lack of experience of government and with little to show by way of staying power for a job that would require him to be visible, available and accessible during Parliament sessions, Rahul refused — all in the name of reviving the party. Opinion on his decision is divided: some see him acting a shirker yet again when the position would have allowed him to learn on the job while others believe it was better that he stayed out lest the inevitable comparison between him and Prime Minister Modi further ruin whatever is left of the Congress
Three, Sonia’s declaration of leading from the front and putting the old guard in charge in Parliament has given the workers heart. But then they are also wary that once the anger against Rahul gets diluted she would push him upfront again.
Indeed, those upset with Rahul’s style of functioning have used the election results to hit out at the Amethi MP who does not meet his own leaders, cuts them short if he meets them and does not know even his workers in his parliamentary constituency.
Ironically, the first anti-Rahul salvo was fired by Milind Deora who was known to be close to him. Deora, who lost the Lok Sabha polls, blamed the debacle not only to advisors who did not have their ears to the ground but also at the leadership which heeded their advise.
Other party workers in Kerala, Rajasthan and Maharashtra took their cue from this and either lambasted Rahul as a "joker," or hit out at his advisors. Even a party veteran like Kishore Chandra Deo, who lost in Andhra Pradesh, charged that the Congress would not have come to such a pass if Rahul had implemented half the promises he had made when he was made vice president in January 2013. He attacked the "rootless wonders and spineless creepers’’ in the party, alleged a “stranglehold” of one to two dozen people on the organization and its leadership and asked Rahul as also Priyanka Gandhi to work to “free the Congress from these chains and shackles."
Although both Indira Gandhi and Sanjay lost in 1977, they fought back with a vengeance. But Rahul is not made of the same mettle as Sanjay even if Sonia makes determined bid to breathe life into the party. And this time, the question is not of party’s revival but of its survival. And even if the Gandhis are seen as a cementing bond, the Congress can neither survive nor revive with Rahul at the helm, said a Congress leader.
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