STATE OF THE CONGRESSIN POOR HEALTH THE GRAND, OLD CONGRESS, THE LARGEST AND THE OLDEST POLITICAL PARTY IN THE COUNTRY, FINDS ITSELF AT CROSSROADS. WHILE SONIA GANDHI HAS MANAGED TO KEEP THE 125-YEAR-OLD PARTY TOGETHER, IT APPEARS TO HAVE LOST THE PLOT IN MOST OF THE BIGGER STATES, LOSING GROUND TO ONE REGIONAL PARTY OR THE OTHER. IT NEEDS TO RE-INVENT ITSELF TO REMAIN RELEVANT, DISCOVER THE TRIBUNE CORRESPONDENTS.
It is often difficult for a national party to reconcile regional aspirations and ambition. While Congress leaders in Andhra Pradesh may find all the justification to concede the demand for a separate Telangana, it is difficult for the Congress to take any decision in haste due to its possible repercussions elsewhere. A national party must perforce put the interests of the country above everything else. But while the Congress gropes for a way forward and seeks to get its act together, it does need to reflect on its role in the states where it is not in power. A lack of clarity and an aversion to take up and uphold both just causes and national interest have led to a loss of credibility from which it is finding difficult to recover. In Tamil Nadu, the Congress is content to play second fiddle. Since the Congress lost power in TN in the wake of anti-Hindi agitations spearheaded by the DMK, it has not been able to regain its lost ground. Besides the lack of a charismatic leader in the state and factional feuds, the party had lost touch with regional sentiments due to the wide gap between the people and party leaders. While Congress leaders often hail former AICC president K Kamaraj as the model for Congress rule and promise to revive his memory, they gloss over the fact that Kamaraj spent the final days of his life, fighting Indira Gandhi. None of the leaders who were close to Kamaraj is associated with the present Congress party. But a large section of people in Tamil Nadu had great admiration for Indira Gandhi. Her twenty-point programme, her image as a great leader who strengthened Indian defence, economy, science and technology and the country's image in the international arena, is still recalled by people. She is also remembered as a kind mother who appreciated the sentiments of Tamil people and her Sri Lankan Tamil policy is still admired even by strong opponents of the Congress. But the failure to recall Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's association with Indira Gandhi and to claim the rightful legacy of the latter is one of the reasons for the decline of the party in the state. The attitude of the central leadership which sacrificed the interests of the party in Tamil Nadu to increase its Lok Sabha tally, also contributed to demoralisation among party cadres. When the DMK split in 1972, Congress leaders were hopeful of staging a comeback in Tamil Nadu. However, the split and the formation of the AIADMK pushed the Congress to the third place, with a vote share of around 20 per cent. Since then, the party is using this vote share to align with one of the Dravidian parties, who are content to allocate most of the Lok Sabha seats to the Congress and in return, retain most of the Assembly seats for themselves. However, when it formed an alliance with Jayalalithaa's AIADMK in 1991, it accepted one-third of Assembly seats again. Jayalalithaa was catapulted to power with a thumping majority, following a sympathy wave following the assassination of Rajiv Gandhi. The Congress is also seen to be supporting Karnataka or Kerala in the Cauvery and Mullaiperiyar water disputes. Even as the DMK continued in the UPA cabinet which was accused by Tamil groups of supporting Mahinda Rajapaksa's genocidal government, it managed to neutralise people's anger by claiming to to be opposed to the Centre's policies and decisions. It was the Congress, however, which suffered. The party secured over 14 per cent votes in the 2009 elections. This vote share is sufficient for it to cause a major swing. So, both the AIADMK and DMK are eager to have an alliance with it. The minorities and SC communities are with the Congress still. But, the upper caste voters are with the AIADMK now, while the BC votes, which form the majority in Tamil Nadu, are split between the AIADMK and DMK. But the party no longer has an identity of its own. Its stand on most of the issues affecting the people's mind are not known. Similarly, in Maharashtra the party is unable to take advantage of a splintered opposition. The BJP-Shiv Sena alliance is frayed and the split in the Sena has hurt the alliance. The NCP remains a regional force. But still, the Congress has made no headway. In fact in the just concluded elections to the Kalyan-Dombivli municipality Raj Thackeray's MNS took the second place after the Shiv Sena-BJP despite the Congress contesting in alliance with the NCP. Power struggles within the party continue to weaken the party. Prithviraj Chavan who replaced Ashok Chavan as Maharashtra's Chief Minister in the wake of the Adarsh Housing Society scandal, is seen by his colleagues in the state Congress party as an import from Delhi with a tenuous hold in state politics. Chavan's assumption of the top job was clearly inauspicious. Ajit Pawar, the ambitious nephew of Nationalist Congress Party supreme Sharad Pawar, pushed his way to the post of Deputy Chief Minister. The new Chief Minister has had to yield some ground within weeks of taking over. Noted social worker Anna Hazare forced him to set up a commission to probe the setting up of the Lavasa hill station near Pune. With Sharad Pawar being the main backer of Lavasa, Chavan's political survival entirely depends on how the commission goes ahead with the job. Though he is seen as a clean politician, Chavan is not immune to the pressures of leading a national party in a major state like Maharashtra. Over the years Maharashtra has emerged as a major contributor to the Congress party's finances and this has put successive Chief Ministers at the mercy of the powerful builders' lobby. Chavan, like his predecessors , continues to hold the urban development portfolio seen as a cash cow in a state whose cities are undergoing rapid development. Within weeks of taking over , Prithviraj Chavan's government overrode objections from urban town planners and other experts to award a bonanza to builders in Mumbai's suburbs. By paying a token fee, developers in suburban Mumbai were allowed 33 percent more area to build upon. The bonanza for builders is estimated at several thousand crore rupees in the current financial year alone. In Bihar, the party has never been able to recover since its failure to stop the infamous Bhagalpur riots in 1989, which was accentuated by its failure to take resolute action against the culprits. Its strength in the state Assembly sunk this year to an all-time low with just four of its candidates managing to win in the House with a strength of 243. Although Bihar elects 40 members of the Lok Sabha, Congress has just two seats from Bihar. A further nail in the Congress coffin was driven by the emergence of Lalu Yadav and his slogan of social justice. The demolition of the Babri mosque alienated the Muslims and completed the isolation of the Congress in the state. Gradually the Congress came to depend so much on Lalu's popularity for its electoral prospects that it was branded as a 'B'team of RJD. The party was content with that status till the last Lok Sabha elections when Lalu and his new found ally Ram Vilas Paswan decided to push it further down to the status of their 'C' team. Finding no other alternative, the Congress decided to contest all the 40 Lok Sabha seats. But it could not find suitable candidates for all the seats, forcing it to fall back on discredited politicians having criminal antecedence like Sadhu Yadav and Pappu Yadav. Even that did not help because of infighting and with virtually no organisation at the grassroots. Uttar Pradesh was once the pocket borough of the Congress and the Nehru-Gandhi family. But despite nursing of their own constituencies by Sonia and Rahul Gandhi, and frequent visits by them to the state, party leaders were forced to concede that it indeed has no 'Mission 2012' for UP, a tacit admission that it has given up hopes of putting up a fight in the Assembly election. The much-publicised first transparent election to choose the president of the central region of the Youth Congress took a lot of time and energy. Tarun Patel made history in more ways than one- he was elected in a long drawn election and then suspended soon thereafter for indiscipline when he got locks in the Youth Congress office broken to make room for his new team. The ambitious statewide yatras announced to commemorate the 125th anniversary of the Congress also turned into a major embarassment. Scheduled across the state, covering every assembly segment, they were meant to remind the people of the state's contribution to the first war of independence and the freedom movement. They were also meant to resurrect unsung local heroes. However, the yatras flagged off with much fanfare by AICC General Secretary Rahul Gandhi on April 14 never really took off and had to be cut short or abandoned mid way. First it got embroiled in controversies in several places as district level leaders engaged nautch girls and other hired entertainers to attract and retain crowds in the sweltering heat. Obviously this did not go down well with the senior leaders. Finally the yatras were cut short. The second phase in November also failed to arouse much interest and were cut short as Congress leaders scrambled to explain that people were busy with the panchayat elections and the wedding season. The grand public rally to be addressed by the Congress president Sonia Gandhi in Allahabad to mark the culmination of the yatras also remained a non event, coming as it did on November 25, a day after the party's debacle in Bihar. The result of the two by polls to the assembly seats of Nidhauli Kalan in Etah and Lakhimpur Khiri in November, therefore, came as no surprise. In both the places the Congress candidates lost their deposits, coming third and fourth respectively. Such examples from other states, specially the bigger states, can be multiplied to highlight the plight of the grand,old dame.It would be a pity though if a great institution with a glorious past flounders. The country needs a strong, liberal, secular and nationalist party, in power or in opposition.It is time for Congress leaders to rise to the occasion and put their house in order. Nelson Ravikumar in Chennai, Shiv Kumar in Mumbai, Shahira Naim in Lucknow
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| Allies: Sensitivity of coalition partners, tantrums and mood-swings and the sheer unpredictability of Mamata Banerjee, Karunanidhi and Sharad Pawar appear to cramp both Congress and the government. Corruption: The messy affairs of the Commonwealth Games, 2G spectrum allocation, Adarsh Housing Cooperative etc. have made the government and the party vulnerable to charges of condoning corruption. Credibility: The party is seen to be balancing the agenda for the aam-aadmi with patronage to crony capitalism. Its failure to control food inflation and reform the PDS have hurt people where it hurts most. And its passive stance vis-à-vis Ayodhya verdict has led to further disillusionment among the minorities. Drift: After beginning with a flourish, the UPA II government seems to have floundered. With ministers speaking out of turn and voicing their opinion on all issues, the government appears adrift with nobody seemingly in control. Dynasty: With Sonia Gandhi widely believed to be the power behind the throne and Rahul Gandhi accused of shirking both responsibility and accountability, the party is vulnerable to charges of dynastic rule. Gen Y: Despite Congress general secretary Rahul Gandhi’s personal initiative, there is no indication of the party winning over the youth , or for that matter the Youth Congress at the vanguard of change. High-command: The party has been battling the practice of leaving all decision-making to the ‘high-command’. With decision-making centralised in a coterie, inner-democracy and discipline within are casualties. Infighting: Almost every state unit appears divided with leaders talking and working at cross purposes. The party has neither been able to enforce discipline nor to bolster the organisation at grassroots. Leaders with mass base: The party is virtually bereft of leaders with mass base. Leaders like Pranab Mukherjee, P Chidambaram or A.K. Anthony—or the younger leaders like Sachin Pilot or Jyotiraditya Scindia do not seem to have the appeal or ability to deliver their respective states. Organisation: While party general secretary Rahul Gandhi's visits to the homes of the poor attract TV coverage and headlines, the party's ministers, MPs and MLAs are seldom in touch with grassroots. Perception: Congress is fighting the perception that real power rests with Sonia Gandhi, prompting her to endlessly endorse the Prime Minister. This has strengthened the impression that the PM and the PMO is weak. Values: While partymen ritually put on the Gandhi cap, Khadi or dutifully operate the spinning wheel, whenever occasion demands, the party has failed to promote and cultivate a culture of austerity and Gandhian values. |
Sonia Gandhi took over as Congress President in 1998 from Sitaram Kesri, old party loyalist and long-term treasurer. A section of the party broke away in protest and formed the Nationalist Congress Party. But since then the NCP has reconciled to Sonia's foreign origin. Narasimha Rao and Rajiv Gandhi were both Prime Minister and Congress President. The first Congress president was W.C. Bonnerjee in 1885. He was again elected president in 1992. In pre-independence days, the party elected the president every year. On Sunday the term of the president was extended from three years to five. It is interesting to note that while as many as five Muslims held the post of Congress President in pre-independence days, not a single Muslim has held the post since Independence. Hasan Imam (1918), Hakim Ajmal Khan (1921), Maulana Mohammad Ali ( 1923), Maulana Abul Kalam Azad ( 1923 special session and 1945) and M.A. Ansari ( 1927) held the post before Independence. The Congress has always found it difficult to defend the imposition of Emergency by Indira Gandhi, the failure of the state to stop the anti-Sikh riots after her assassination, the remark by Rajiv Gandhi that it is inevitable that the earth would shake when a mighty tree is felled and the accusation that bidding was used to distribute seats by the party. The party is accused on the one hand of appeasing Muslims while the minority community accuses it of doing not quite enough for them. Tribune |
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