In Cong’s changing times, veterans dictate the terms
deft handling of the imbroglio following the Karnataka election results by the Congress veterans has once again proven their relevance in the grand old party which is undergoing a generational shift after Rahul Gandhi took over as its chief in December last year.
The leaders moved swiftly to wrest the initiative from a rampaging Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) to form the next government in the southern state.
Experienced leaders Ghulam Nabi Azad, 69, and Ashok Gehlot, 67, outfoxed the BJP by unconditional support to the Janata Dal (Secular) with HD Kumaraswamy as the chief minister.
While the JD(S) leaders — party chief HD Deve Gowda and his son Kumaraswamy — found the offer too tempting to resist, the BJP had not anticipated the move, particularly since Gandhi had attacked the JD(S) during the campaign trail, even calling it a “B-team” of the BJP.
That the Congress with 78 legislators was willing to play second fiddle to the JD(S), which had bagged 37 seats, was a significant departure from the past when the party, in a similar situation, would insist on the leadership role while negotiating post-poll alliances.
In Meghalaya as well, the party had to rush senior leaders Ahmed Patel, 68, and Kamal Nath, 71, to talk to potential alliance partners after the Congress emerged as the single-largest party with 21 seats in the election held in February
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this year. However, the BJP outsmarted the two Congress strategists and went on to form a coalition government in the state.
Gehlot had been entrusted with the task of handling the party affairs in Gujarat, the home state of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and BJP president Amit Shah, just before the assembly elections late last year.
The Congress, for the first time in the past two decades, gave a tough fight to the BJP in Gujarat elections, significantly improving its tally by winning 80 seats.
“The old guard is here to stay. You cannot simply crush them and move forward. The young leaders should learn from the seniors. Only then they will be successful. It’s the experience of seniors and energy of the youth that will take the party to new heights,” senior Bihar Congress leader Kishore Kumar Jha said.
Rahul Gandhi had announced at the party’s 84th plenary in Delhi in March that he will strive to build a new Congress with “talented” youngsters but at the same time maintained that he will take along both young and old in making the party a powerful instrument of change. “We are going to make Congress a grand old and young party,” he had said in his first speech after taking over the reins from his mother Sonia Gandhi, who was at the helm for more than 19 years.
Political observers say the old guard will continue to play an important role in the Congress despite the emergence of new leaders. “The senior leaders are a valuable asset for the Congress and have been deployed very imaginatively. The old guard and the young eagles must work together if the Congress has to revive in states and nationally,” said Delhi-based political analyst Professor Balveer Arora.
The immediate task for Gandhi is to carry out an elaborate organisational reshuffle and reconstitute the powerful Congress Working Committee.
The task is cut out for him — to maintain balance between the old guard and the next generation.