New Delhi: While other political parties have either started or at least begun getting serious about revamping their organisations to ward off the BJP challenge in North India, the Congress seems to have gone into sleep mode after its massive electoral defeat in the general elections.
It was on 30 May that the Congress general secretary in charge of Uttar Pradesh, Madhusudan Mistry, had announced that he will recommend the dissolution of the state Congress committee to the Congress president. Weeks later, the current committee still exists with no sign of any action being taken yet.
Rahul Gandhi in this file photo. AFP
The 2014 general elections gave the Congress its worst ever tally of just 44 MPs in Lok Sabha. The party barely managed to retain the family pocket boroughs of Amethi and Rae Bareli, losing all other seats in UP. Uttar Pradesh Congress president Nirmal Khatri along with Mistry had convened a meeting of party candidates from 23 seats of Central and Eastern UP in the last week of May. Though the meeting was to discuss the poll debacle and get honest feedback on what went wrong, it seemed as if the whole exercise was done to absolve the party office-bearers of any responsibility.
Mistry went on to give a long list of reasons for their humbling rout right from a pro-BJP wave to organisational weakness, even mentioning that late declaration of candidates did them in. This has irked many leaders who believe Mistry is himself to blame as much for the party’s loss as anyone else. “He (Mistry) is general secretary in charge of Uttar Pradesh. He used to talk to us as if we knew nothing and he knew everything about the state. Now that we have failed to win any seat apart from Amethi and Rae Bareli, we are waiting for him to take moral responsibility,” says a senior leader on condition of anonymity.
A part of the problem has also been the Gandhi scion’s approach to serious issues. When Congress vice president Rahul Gandhi asked Madhusudan Mistry to hold discussions with senior leaders on the fallout of the drubbing received in various states, many leaders didn’t take kindly to it. There is a general feeling within the party that Rahul didn’t consult senior leaders during the election campaign, so the moral responsibility lies firmly at his doorstep. Instead of reaching out to the seniors at such a juncture, a relatively inexperienced Mistry is not the best messenger to have.
After the dramatic offer to resign from Congress president Sonia Gandhi and vice president Rahul Gandhi at the Congress Working Committee, the only time one has seen Rahul in action was at Badaun. But his visit to the place and family of the rape victims follows his old formula of tokenism. The past five years had seen him travel across the length and breadth of the country where he met, ate and slept at homes of poor villagers trying to gauge their problems. But the biggest drawback of these visits was that they had no follow up whatsoever.
“It is the BJP and its malicious agenda to show Rahul Ji in bad light,” counters Akhilesh Pratap Singh, National Spokesperson, Congress. “He is not interested in telling the media what follow up action is being taken by his team and the party. He believes in doing his work silently,” adds Singh.
In stark contrast, the ruling Samajwadi Party in UP has not only dissolved its state unit but has also removed over 30 persons who were holding the equivalent of minister of state rank in various departments and boards of the state.
Mayawati’s Bahujan Samaj Party has also dissolved its state unit and is heading for a major revamp. So what stops the Congress from doing what everyone else is doing?
There has been absolutely no word on any changes likely to happen within the party. Many leaders were upset when Rahul made senior leader Mallikarjun Kharge the party’s leader in Lok Sabha instead of himself. “He is not interested in any post or positions. Rahul Ji only wants to work for the party,” says Rajeev Satav, president of Indian Youth Congress and one of the only two MPs to win on a Congress ticket from Maharashtra. “With Kharge Ji in Lok Sabha and Azad Saheb in Rajya Sabha, we have competent leaders who represent the philosophy of Congress’s inclusive growth. Rahul ji will speak at the right time,” says Satav.
But the pressure is mounting day by day on the Congress high command to quickly revamp the party, especially state units going to polls in Maharashtra, Haryana and even Delhi. Infighting continues in many other units with no solution in sight, like Assam and Punjab. While the party rallies behind Sonia, it’s Rahul who is taking the decisions. But so far Rahul has kept everyone guessing what his next move will be. While “insiders” say the party is in for major overhauling of the organisation very soon, it’s the whole attitude of going about things casually that is making matters worse.
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