THAT SINKING FEELING
DESPITE A VICTORY IN PUNJAB, THE CONGRESS IS IN A DEEPER CRISIS, PROMPTING FRESH CALLS FOR A LEADERSHIP CHANGE AT THE HELM
ON MARCH 10, a day before the assembly election results in Uttar Pradesh, Punjab, Uttarakhand, Goa and Manipur, the Congress appointed a new president in Arunachal Pradesh. In this northeastern state, where 43 of its 44 MLAs had deserted the party last year to form a BJP government, the choice of president was crucial as he would be tasked with rebuilding the party from almost scratch. The Congress high command handed the arduous job to Takam Sanjoy, who had lost the 2014 Lok Sabha elections from Arunachal West. In 2011, india today had reported an allegation of rape against him.
Yet, vice-president Rahul Gandhi, who talks of bringing transparency and merit to the Congress’s organisational structure, believes Sanjoy is the best bet for reviving the party in the state. Such inexplicable decisions reflect the rot in a party that is down to just 813 assembly seats—20 per cent of the total 4,020 in the country. The BJP’s primary rival on paper is in power in only seven states—it’s an alliance partner in Bihar—while the saffron party rules 14 and, at the time of filing this report, had won an invite from the Manipur governor to form a government in the state.
More importantly, the Congress is out of power in eight big states—UP, Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh, West Bengal, Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, Gujarat and Rajasthan—that account for 331 Lok Sabha seats. In the Lok Sabha, the Congress has 44 MPs against the BJP’s 282.
Putting such hard statistics and the March 11 debacle aside, Congress leaders exude optimism. “We won Punjab and are the single largest party in Goa and Manipur,” says K. Raju, chief of the Congress’s SC cell and a Rahul Gandhi confidant. “We will examine the factors behind our defeat in UP and Uttarakhand, but let’s not forget we performed better than the BJP in three out of five states.” Navjot Singh Sidhu, the newly elected Congress MLA from Punjab, has even declared the party’s spectacular victory in the state—77 out of 117 seats—as a turning point. Sidhu’s statement crediting the win to Captain Amarinder Singh and not Rahul Gandhi gave voice to what was so far a murmur in the party.
The rout in UP and Uttarakhand—a seventh defeat since the 2014 Lok Sabha polls—has once again put in question Rahul’s leadership in the face of a surging BJP. Off the record, senior Congress leaders claim that a reshuffle at the top is inevitable. Party veteran P. Chidambaram has been more upfront. “The victories in UP and Uttarakhand have reconfirmed that Narendra Modi is the most dominant political leader. Punjab also has delivered a clear verdict in favour of the Amarinder Singhled Congress,” he tweeted, clearly indicating that Rahul Gandhi cannot be the Congress’s answer to Modi.
Though most senior leaders are wary of putting it on record, there is consensus that the Congress’s revival must begin by winning back states, and that required strengthening the organisational structure and nurturing regional leaders who can win elections. “With Rahul Gandhi failing to effectively challenge the Narendra Modi juggernaut, we need strong leaders in states who can take the prime minister head on,” says a Congress general secretary on condition of anonymity. “Look at Modi’s [lack of ] success against Nitish Kumar, Mamata Banerjee, Arvind Kejriwal and Naveen Patnaik.”
To be fair to Rahul, he has held several rounds of discussions with party leaders and workers on organisational restructuring from the grassroots. He has emphasised the importance of strengthening booth committees as a key to electoral success. But barring a few appointments, there have been no other attempts to galvanise the state units. In Congress-ruled Karnataka, Chief Minister Siddaramaiah’s demand that state home minister G. Parameshwara not hold a second post, as state unit president, has gone unheard by the party high command.
RAHUL’S INABILITY to contain dissidence and infighting has cost the party dear in Arunachal Pradesh, Assam and Kerala. “He either placed his bet on the wrong horse or looked away when the party was bleeding in these states,” says a Congress spokesperson. “In Punjab, however, he backed Amarinder Singh at the right moment and got results. The Punjab model must be followed in other states.”
Ten states will be up for grabs before the 2019 Lok Sabha elections—Gujarat, Himachal Pradesh, Karnataka, Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Rajasthan, Meghalaya, Mizoram, Tripura and Nagaland. In Himachal, Karnataka, Meghalaya and Mizoram, the
Congress is in power. Barring Tripura and Nagaland, the rest will be a straight contest between the party and the BJP.
Though several senior leaders claim that the immediate focus is the Gujarat elections later this year, the ‘Punjab model’ may not work there. The civic polls held late last year in the state indicate the Congress needs to recover considerable lost ground. Of the 123 municipal and district panchayat seats in 16 districts where by-elections were held in November, the Congress won just 16. The BJP clinched the remaining 107. The BJP, which faced a lot of heat from the Patidar quota agitation and allegations of atrocities against Dalits, attempted a course correction by appointing Vijay Rupani as chief minister in place of Anandiben Patel. The Congress is yet to declare a chief ministerial face.
IN HIMACHAL PRADESH, even before the assembly elections later this year, the Congress faces twin challenges: Bhoranj assembly byelection in April and the Shimla Municipal Corporation elections in May. “The UP-Uttarakhand trend will continue in Himachal Pradesh and the BJP will win 60 seats [out of 68],” claims Anurag Thakur, BJP MP from the state. “The Bhoranj bypoll will be the beginning of a Congress-free Himachal Pradesh.”
After five years in power in Karnataka, Siddaramaiah’s first hurdle will be antiincumbency. He steered the Congress to a win in 2013, with deft handling of backward class and minority votes. But as the UP results show, appeasement of minorities may no longer work. Also, the return of former chief minister B.S. Yeddyurappa, who feels he doesn’t need a Modi wave or religious polarisation to win elections, has revitalised the BJP.
In Chhattisgarh, former chief minister Ajit Jogi’s exit last year could dent the Congress’s chances in the 2018 elections. In 2013, the Congress won 39 seats, with a vote share of 40 per cent. At 41 per cent vote share, the BJP won 49 seats. Both Jogi’s party, Janta Congress Chhattisgarh, and the Congress are vying for the Opposition space and accusing each other of going soft on the Raman Singh-led BJP government. Any division in the anti-BJP vote could mean the Congress slipping further.
With the three Congress bigwigs in Madhya Pradesh—Kamal Nath, Digvijaya Singh and Jyotiraditya Scindia—focused on national politics, the party has failed to corner the BJP government under Shivraj Singh Chouhan, despite mega scams such as Vyapam. Nath and Singh have advocated that Scindia be projected as the chief ministerial candidate against Chouhan, but the central leadership’s view on this is not known. “I will never seek a position; the top leadership has not spoken to me about this,” says Scindia. “I will respond only when I am directed to by my leaders.”
The 2013 assembly election results in Madhya Pradesh show how crucial election management would be for the Congress. The party had secured 36 per cent votes and 58 seats out of the total 230 constituencies. With 9 per cent more votes, the BJP walked away with 165 seats. “In a bipolar election, a swing of 9 per cent meant over 100 seats,” says a Congress general secretary. “With a little push and a strong leader, we can easily win Madhya Pradesh, but Rahul Gandhi must understand this arithmetic.”
The significance of grooming a regional leader is most evident in Rajasthan, where the Congress is showing early signs of a revival under 39-year-old Sachin Pilot, who was appointed state unit president in February 2014. The Congress won only 21 of the 200 assembly seats in the 2013 elections and drew a blank in the Lok Sabha polls next year. But in the elections to 37 local bodies held in December last year, the party notched 14 seats against the BJP’s 19. In August 2016, it had won 13 of the 24 panchayat samitis, four of six zila parishads, and two of seven municipal bodies in the civic and panchayat bypolls. However, Pilot, who is touted as a chief ministerial candidate, faces opposition from within his party. Party veteran and former chief minister Ashok Gehlot says no decision has been made on the chief ministerial nominee. With Assam and Arunachal Pradesh in its kitty and an impressive showing in Manipur, the BJP’s next target is Meghalaya. “We will certainly win Meghalaya,” asserts Himanta Biswa Sarma, convenor of the NorthEast Democratic Alliance, a BJP-led group of nonCongress parties. A former Congress leader, Sarma was the architect of the BJP’s victory in Assam and played a crucial role in the formation of a BJP government in Arunachal Pradesh.
That leaves Mizoram as the only safe state for the Congress in the Northeast, as the BJP hardly has any presence there. But then, in 2012, the BJP did not win a single seat in Manipur. This election, its tally jumped to 21 MLAs.