Is the Congress party serious about revival?
Unless the Congress can convince citizens that Rahul Gandhi is capable, articulate what it stands for, deploy organisational energy smartly, India will remain dominated by one party
India’s future is dependent on the Congress. That may sound counter-intuitive — for isn’t India’s destiny now in the hands of the most powerful government, led by the most powerful prime minister (PM), that the country has seen in close to five decades?
Yes and no, for the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has already executed parts of its vision of India — many agree with it, many don’t. But whether the Bjp-led government can continue to shape the nature of the State, whether the executive dominates all other branches of government and civil society, and whether there is an alternative power configuration in Delhi, depends on the Congress.
From the Opposition’s perspective, there is no pathway to defeating the BJP without the Congress. In Himachal Pradesh, Haryana, Punjab, Rajasthan, Gujarat, (large parts of) Maharashtra and Karnataka, Goa, Puducherry, Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand, Assam, Manipur, Arunachal Pradesh, and Uttarakhand — which together have close to 250 Lok Sabha seats — the battle is between the Congress and the BJP. Regional parties may do well in their respective states, but if the BJP once again sweeps north, west, central and parts of south and Northeast India, it will get more entrenched.
As the Congress Working Committee (CWC) meets on Saturday, it has to tackle immediate internal issues — particularly Punjab (where the Gandhi siblings backed the rebel, Navjot Singh Sidhu, against the incumbent, Amarinder Singh, but still couldn’t please the rebel); Rajasthan (where the rebel, Sachin Pilot, is waiting for the incumbent, Ashok Gehlot, to accommodate his supporters); Chhattisgarh (where the rebel, TS Singh Deo, was promised chief ministership, but the incumbent, Bhupesh Baghel, has bought time by winning over one of the two siblings); and the dissent of the G23 leaders (where the leadership has, rather undemocratically, chosen to bully critics rather than engage in democratic debate and hold internal polls).
The party also has to retain personnel (a hungry Trinamool Congress has already poached Sushmita Dev in Assam and Luzinho Faleiro in Goa), preserve its electoral space (in Punjab, Uttarakhand and Goa, the Aam Aadmi Party is nibbling away at Congress’s base), and perform respectably in UP without helping the BJP (the stronger it gets, the more Muslims veer towards the Congress, and the more divided the anti-bjp vote becomes).
But beyond the immediate, the key question is whether the Congress is in terminal decline or can it revive? This requires CWC to have an honest conversation on leadership, ideology, organisation, and alliances. This can’t happen if there is only a competitive display of sycophancy, rather than listening to all viewpoints in a democratic spirit.
On leadership, the Indian electorate has made it clear, both in 2014 and 2019, that it will vote for a party when it has faith in the competence of the leader. It has also made it clear that it does not have this faith in Rahul Gandhi. The simple task for the Congress is to, first, decide who will be its leader to take on Narendra Modi in 2024 (this can be someone from the party or outside, a Gandhi or a non-gandhi); two, invest in building this leader’s brand just as Modi built his brand between 2007 and 2014; and three, in case that leader is Rahul Gandhi, convince citizens that Gandhi is indeed competent, for his legislative, administrative or political record is less than credible.
This problem is even more acute because, to the electorate, it seems like Rahul Gandhi is either reluctant or unable to take charge of his party, or that he doesn’t have the hunger for victory and is happy to wage some form of protracted war (the buzz is he is already thinking of 2029 rather than 2024). Gandhi has told interlocutors that he is now ready to take over the party — but after creating his own core team, which explains the influx of mid-level lateral entrants or appointment of new state chiefs. But Indian political organisations revive from the top. The sooner Gandhi ends the drift, the better it is for the party.
On ideology, the Congress can either battle the BJP from a centreright position (with an assertion of Hindu religiosity and silence on secularism and minority rights, while challenging the BJP on governance) or a centre-left position (with a clear anti-hindutva position, advocacy of minority rights and representation, and challenging the BJP on both ideology and governance). The Congress also needs to figure out its relationship with Indian capital. Is it the party of 1970s quasi-socialism or 1991 reforms or of the economic Left? Being an umbrella party isn’t possible anymore. Today, parties have to make a choice and stick to it.
And finally, the Congress must decide on the organisational and alliance question. This is important because Congress’s vote-to-seat conversion ratio is dismal (it got close to 120 million votes with just 52 seats in 2019; in 2009, with almost the same number of votes, it got 206 seats). This requires ensuring that organisational and financial energy is spread across the right constituencies and states, and the party machine can get voters out to the polling booths where it matters. There is little point in the Congress squandering resources and fighting the BJP in Tamil Nadu, West Bengal, Bihar, Uttar Pradesh, or even Delhi, where regional parties are far better equipped to do so.
The Congress can declare its intent to be the kind of Opposition India needs at the moment by discussing at least some of these issues at the CWC meeting.
It must focus on regions where it is in direct competition with the BJP; play a supporting role elsewhere; decide on one ideological message; and resolve the question of leadership. Otherwise, it can prepare for another decade in the Opposition.