IT’S NOW OR NEVER FOR THE CONGRESS

Last week, all 16 of Congress MLAs from Odisha rushed to the national capital to press for a change in the party’s state leadership. The meeting of the MLAs with vicepresident Rahul Gandhi, which came amid speculation that the former had threatened to quit, underscored the festering organisational challenge the Congress party faces. It also highlighted the growing impatience and frustration within the Congress cadre, especially in states like Odisha, where the party is often found helplessly watching opportunities slip away.

The Odisha episode is not a one-off development. On the contrary, it has become a pattern.

Beginning with Assam, where one of its most formidable leaders, Himanta Biswa Sarma, walked out to script a historic win for the BJP in the state earlier this year, the party has seen a series of revolts across states. Earlier this year, it lost its government in Arunachal, when rebels MLAs walked out to install a BJP government. The same episode just stopped short of repeating itself in Uttarakhand and Meghalaya months later. In June, six of its 10 MLAs in Tripura quit to join Mamata Banerjee’s Trinamool Congress and in Chhattisgarh, former chief minister Ajit Jogi quit to float his own party. Jogi was seen as -someone who could bring the Congress back to power in the tribal state, which goes to the polls in 2018.

More recently, factionalism has intensified in poll-bound Punjab, where the ruling Badals stand discredited among the electorate and the Congress has a real chance of returning to power. But that prospect is being challenged by debutant Aam Aadmi Party (AAP). Bad news has also come in from the other, and more critical, poll-bound state — Uttar Pradesh, where its former state president Rita Bahugana Joshi decided to walk into the BJP’s fold.

About a dozen states are scheduled to hold assembly elections between now and 2019, when there will be the next Lok Sabha election also. These include BJP-ruled states such as Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, Gujarat, Goa and Chhattisgarh, where the opportunity for the Congress to ride on anti-incumbency awaits to be tapped.

For the Congress, the challenge lies in balancing the interests of party veterans and legacy leaders with the push for a new brand of politics and a new order that Rahul Gandhi would like to see his party embrace.

Sample this. In Haryana, its new leader Ashok Tanwar, a close aide of Rahul, has been at odds with the established order represented by former chief minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda; in Odisha, the MLAs want Prasad Hari- chandan, a JNU-educated youth leader, to be replaced by a veteran because he is seen as lacking experience and ability to mobilise people and resources. In states such as Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan, where younger leaders have revived the party’s prospects, they have seen little help come their way from veterans.

At the core of all these lies the inability of the party’s central leadership to provide clarity on an organisation roadmap and its strategy for the future. When Rahul Gandhi became vice-president in 2013, it was seen as a matter of time before he would take over the reins of the party. Three and half years on, the suspense continues, creating an environment of uncertainty that keeps most party leaders worrying more about their future than the party’s.

If the Congress is serious about its future, it must also move to decentralise decision-making in the party. Even today it has many promising faces across states who can lead the party in their own right, but find themselves ploughing a lonely furrow. This needs to change.

It is time the grand old party read the writing on the wall.

FOR THE PARTY, THE CHALLENGE LIES IN BALANCING THE INTERESTS OF VETERANS AND LEGACY LEADERS WITH THE PUSH FOR A NEW BRAND OF POLITICS ...IT MUST NOW MOVE TO DECENTRALISE DECISIONMAKING