Cong section prepares pitch for Rahul to helm

NEW DELHI: Ahead of the Congress’ introspection meeting in Udaipur, a section of the party has prepared a pitch for the return of Rahul Gandhi as president. The only time that the 137year-old party performed well in the last decade (2012-22) was 2018, the year that Gandhi served as president, they contend.

It was a year the party won state elections, decisions were taken and executed quickly, and the party started functioning well to challenge the Narendra Modi government, they say. While not everyone is convinced, Team Gandhi say it’s hard to argue with their argument to recreate the team of 2018, and they’ve been discussing it at various platforms in the run up to internal polls.

“It is an undeniable fact that in the last decade, 2018 was the best year for the Congress party,” said Praveen Chakravarty, head of the Congress’ data and analytics team. “It is also a fact that it was the only full year in which Rahul Gandhi was president of the party.”

Gandhi was elected party president in December 2017, succeeding mother Sonia Gandhi, and remained in the position till he resigned in May 2019 after the party won only 52 seats in the Lok Sabha elections. Gandhi took personal responsibility for the poor showing, and it forced his mother to come back from retirement as interim president. However, loyalists say the way the party functioned in a dynamic manner in 2018 is worthy of recreating.

Those who agree with this are the ones who say Gandhi led the party close to victory in the 2017 Gujarat elections. In the 182-seat assembly, the Congress won 77 seats compared to 99 by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).

This sense of a new challenge came after a terrible period between 2014-17 when they lost governments in Maharashtra and Kerala, and lost many alliance partners like the Nationalist Congress Party and Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam.

But with Gujarat as a turning point, people like Chakravarty argue there was new energy and new initiatives. For instance, they started what was called Professionals Congress led by Shashi Tharoor, which aimed to induct fresh blood into the party. The party also got their social media teams and data analytics team in place.

In May 2018, it formed the government in Karnataka with an alliance with the Janata Dal (Secular) and, by the end of the year, the party won three states in the Hindi belt — Chhattisgarh, Rajasthan and Rajasthan. It’s another matter that the Karnataka government fell by 2019 and the Madhya Pradesh government did not sustain beyond 2020.

The loyalists’ explanation is that with Rahul Gandhi’s exit, it all fell apart. Many of the young stars like Sushmita Dev and others left the party, and the party’s election performance just kept getting worse.

It failed to win a single state out of the five in the recently held assembly elections.

HT contacted Kapil Sibal, a member of the Group of 23 and one of Gandhi’s strongest critics,. but he refused to comment on this matter. Other party colleagues found the theory somewhat flawed. They say it is unfair of Gandhi’s team to claim 2018 as reflective of Gandhi’s performance while de-linking him from the 2019 elections.

”There are 72 Lok Sabha seats in Punjab, Tamil Nadu and Kerala, and yes, you can say the 53 that voted UPA (United Progressive Alliance), it was a vote for Gandhi. However, you also have to accept that the other states voted against Gandhi,” a leader said, seeking anonymity. “You cannot cherry pick the data.’’

THE ONLY TIME THE PARTY PERFORMED WELL IN THE LAST DECADE (2012-22) WAS 2018, THE YEAR THAT GANDHI SERVED AS PRESIDENT, THEY CONTEND