Blend of age, experience, merit could revive Cong
NEWDELHI: Only an organisational makeover that accommodates age, merit and experience can bridge the divide that has come to spook the Congress. Much of the media has shown the dissenting group as delivering a “letter bomb”. In reality, it was a distress flare gun meant to flag issues dogging the party.
The intraparty fissures run deeper than can possibly be measured by outsiders. Their genesis is in myriad conflicts: egotistical, generational, temperamental, and ambition-driven. One side is in a hurry to arrive, the other disinclined to be cast aside. Nothing except a fine balance of competing interests will quell the discord. For the resentment the dissidents voiced has wider acceptance, including of those who made per forma statements of loyalty but with an eye on self-promotion. For that reason, the first appointments the party made after the heated August 24 Congress Working Committee (CWC) meeting have been less than salutary. They’ve failed to dispel the notion of some in the party being more equal than others.
A low-profile MP saw a “shadow of the coming events” in the rejig in the Congress’s legislature parties in the two Houses of Parliament. A majority of the new inductees are either aligned with or are acceptable to what’s known as Team Rahul Gandhi.
That’s true more of the Lok Sabha. In the Rajya Sabha, leading dissenters Ghulam Nabi Azad and Anand Sharma continue as leader and deputy leader of the Opposition. The equation there could change when Azad’s term in the Upper House ends early next year.
One reason for the party’s state of suspended animation since the 2019 electoral debacle has been the emergence of a de facto power group. Claiming allegiance to Rahul Gandhi, this faction has sought an upper hand against rival claimants to positions in the party and in states where the Congress has governments.
The internecine tussle gave rise to a party-within-the-party; a parallel power structure that limited the space of the old guard and their set of young supporters. The result: a largely dysfunctional Congress under an ailing Sonia Gandhi who enjoyed wide respect but lacked the energy that helped her navigate it to power in 2004 and 2009.
In the short run, the haemorrhage can be plugged through a representative advisory council the CWC decided to constitute to help Sonia Gandhi in the remaining period of her interim presidency. The envisioned panel’s inclusive character could keep the chasms from widening. That’s needed because the most unsettling fallout from the feud has been the Congress’s obsolescence, in terms of public perception, as an alternative to the Bharatiya Janata Party. It won elections in the interregnum, but not the popular trust to project itself as a viable democratic option.
The authors of the much-debated letter seeking an organisational overhaul under an elected leader with a tangible presence could read the message -- and decided to alert the incumbent dispensation. They had their little nests to feather. They saw, nevertheless, the withering of the tree -- which is the Congress -- on which they were perched with the arriving sparrows of generational change.
Be it as it may, several party functionaries consider the built-up friction more complex than a battle between the old and the young. They decode it as a pushback against relative beginners who have -- or pretend to hold – Rahul Ganshi’s power of attorney. Holding junior positions in the AICC set up, or as members of his inner circle, many among them have sought to “enhance their value without proving their worth”.
These upcoming apparatchiks have for long been a subject of debate and criticism within the party. They’re often in disagreement with the seasoned players who, too, have been short on giving them room to groom. The dichotomy caused the party problems in Karnataka and Rajasthan at tremendous political cost. As much attributed to their inclination to play favourites are the nascent rebellions in Punjab and Chattisgarh.
Till DK Shivakumar took over as the state party chief, it was difficult to discern as to who was the real PCC president, said a Bengaluru-based leader. Many veterans and their protégés have found themselves marked, marginalised or unwanted in the prevailing flux. The process has worked as much in the reverse.
Can the hiatus be bridged within the span of the six months for which Sonia Gandhi has agreed to continue? The jury’s still out on that. The purpose with which she joined active politics in 1997-98 was to prevent the Congress’s disintegration under Sitaram Kesri. She cannot possibly let that objective unravel at this stage of her innings.
A template that can help her address the diarchy was set by her husband Rajiv Gandhi, who forged a working relationship with leaders who owed their rise to his brother Sanjay. “It’s one piece of history from which all can learn,” said a CWC member.
The letter-writers perhaps clumsily phrased a paragraph that came across as a farewell to the Gandhi family while mooting the idea of a collective leadership. The truth is that one cannot be at the expense of the other. There has to be opportunity for merit and regard for experience.
In fact, many Congress men who dissociated themselves from the letter aren’t supportive of the work style of the “second line” aligned with Rahul. “Their behaviour leaves a lot to be desired,” bemoaned a senior leader. He was hopeful nevertheless of the ongoing debate having a sobering influence on those pushing boundaries and punching above their weight.