Congress needs total makeover

The time for “introspection” is past. This is a dead expression trotted out by sheepish politicians as Congress vice- president Rahul Gandhi has just done in the backdrop of the perceptions generated by the Assembly poll results in May.

To take a concept from Islam, what the Congress really needs is to wage the “Greater Jihad” — the one in which you wrestle with yourself in an effort to improve — in order to try and be in better shape for the next important poll battle. This can go alongside the “Lesser Jihad” in which the fight is against perceived foes.

But the “Greater Jihad” cannot be postponed.

The battle for selfimprovement hardly needs to be on the lines of the “surgery” that senior party leader Digvijay Singh may have in mind, although he has not elaborated. The same may be said of the observations of another Congress stalwart, the former maharaja Amarendra Singh of Patiala, who has asked party chief Sonia Gandhi to step aside in favour of her son Rahul.

However, many in the party seem perfectly happy to let Mrs Gandhi remain in her present position. When senior political figures put out their views, it is usually with a deep sense of selfinterest. But regardless of what the Congress or its leading lights, including Mrs Gandhi and Mr Gandhi, may think, the party has a mere three years to pull up its socks, the same as the ruling side.

It would be presumptuous of the BJP to imagine that its job is easier than that of the Congress. The people have got very little out of Modi sarkar and the hosannas being sung are mostly propaganda, plain and simple.

In a dozen states of western and northern India, the BJP picked up nearly cent per cent of the Lok Sabha seats in 2014 on the strength of the much touted “Gujarat model” of development, which has now become a huge embarrassment. From the start it was a falsehood imposed upon the nation in collaboration with a by and large unquestioning media desiring change. Most of these 300- plus seats in question are likely to be fiercely contested in 2019. The public mood is quickly souring because of unmet expectations. The dynamics look very different from 2014.

But the Congress cannot take anything for granted either. However, we should be clear about one thing. The Congress badly needs to reorganise its act. But this is not because it lost the Assembly election in Assam, the apparent reason for so much Congress- baiting these days, including from inside the party.

The election in Assam was Congress’ to lose after 15 years in office on the trot. The surprise would have been if the BJP had lost. The country has a young population profile, and voters are eager for change.

Even so, it is noteworthy that while the Congress won just 26 seats in the state as against the BJP’s 60, it won a greater percentage of the total votes polled — 31 per cent as against BJP’s 29. Now it seems the Congress’ critics would have wanted the party to win Assam for the fourth time in a row, and anything less counts as ignominy. The plain truth is that the BJP was able to form a government because it struck local alliances while the Congress was foolish enough to not even try. Assam turned out to be Bihar the other way round.

But the fundamental reason for a “Greater Jihad” in the Congress goes well beyond presentday politics and election outcomes. The motivating force ought to be that the Congress needs to rediscover itself as a democratic party if the movement begun by Gandhi ( before the Mahatma, the Congress was an annual conclave of influential lawyers held each December to petition the Queen) is to sustain itself as a viable political party after the Nehru- Gandhis have gone. It is the long term that should be of concern.

For decades, the Congress has become entrenched as a paternalistic party, not a democratic one. ( Its left- of- centre stance, a Nehru-Gandhi hallmark much loved by the people, is beside the point.) This has led to a severe dynastic distortion at all levels, especially at the top. ( The fact that other parties are seeking to mimic the Congress in this is hardly a consolation.)

It is true the Nehru-Gandhis were away from the vortex of power after Rajiv Gandhi’s assassination. The party fared especially badly under Sitaram Kesri as chief and lost the support of a big chunk of the electorate after the demolition of the Babri Masjid when P. V. Narasimha Rao was the Prime Minister. As a rescue act, Mrs Gandhi had to be literally entreated to take charge as president.

It’s been nearly two decades since then.

The line needs to be drawn if the original legacy of the Congress is to be retrieved. Mrs Gandhi had herself been drafted by a party in desperation — to revive it. She has done what she could and the time is to move on.

Mrs Gandhi brought the Congress a string of highs, which were followed by a deep low in 2014 in terms of parliamentary numbers. That was the perfect time to walk away from the scene in every sense except the ideological. The lotus of Hindutva had bloomed and the Congress chief would have had greater faith in her own ability to contest the Hindu right than in any other Congress leader’s.

But there the line needs to be drawn if the original legacy of the Congress is to be retrieved. Mrs Gandhi had herself been drafted by a party in desperation — to revive it. She has done what she could and the time is to move on.

The time is not for chopping or changing advisers and other hangers- on, and engage in “surgery” of that kind, or to rope in Priyanka Gandhi Vadra, who is just another dynastic alternative. The time is for genuine party elections in which Mr Rahul Gandhi voluntarily sits out, taking a gap year, and shows no partisan interest ( like his mother kept away after Rajiv). The election from the block level up should be completed in about a year. Just the announcement of such an exercise is apt to breathe new life into the party.

When the genuine CWC is elected by genuine All-India Congress Committee members, let it choose a new president with Mrs Gandhi volunteering out. We’ll learn soon enough if the Nehru-Gandhis need the Congress more, or is it the other way round.