Jitin Prasada and Raj Babbar, who had signed the dissent note, left out of State poll panels; loyalist Khurshid to lead team
The Congress, or the Gandhis to be precise since they have made it clear that even their loyalists have lost their right to constructive criticism, is fumbling around in Uttar Pradesh. For the party’s strategy for a build-up to the Assembly elections is nothing but a delusion of the grandeur that has long left it. So, party managers have been tasked to rope in the younger demographic by conducting a quiz on former Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi and gifting tablets and laptops to the winners. Yes, in his lifetime Rajiv did have a youthful appeal and his visionary policies revolutionised telecom as we know it today for example, but how will that impact today’s youth in one of India’s most politically aware States? Unless the leadership wants to extend a dynastic aura to those of his children, Rahul and Priyanka Gandhi, and rescue their fortunes? While the former has lost the youth connect, no matter how many questions he might raise on social media, the latter, for all her oratory and charm, has not been able to inject fresh breath energy into a moribund organisation. Despite being declared the party general secretary for eastern Uttar Pradesh before the Lok Sabha elections last year, the Congress could only hold on to the family pocketborough of Rae Bareli, Rahul himself losing the other family bastion of Amethi. Yes, Priyanka has taken up UP-centric causes, led from the front during the citizenship law protests and the pandemic-induced migration, made the right noises and even focussed on knitting back the organisational matrix with some grassroots leaders. But without political manifestation, her best efforts have made the Congress a largely non-profit organisation. How much sense will hardselling the Gandhi tag make now? That too at a time when senior leaders, who are more worried about the party’s survival than its first family and wrote an open letter recommending its revival, have been left out of the State’s election panels. Jitin Prasada and Raj Babbar, who had signed the dissent note, have been dropped despite working the ground for years. Senior loyalist leader Salman Khurshid will lead the team, which also includes Nirmal Khatri and Naseeb Pathan, to formulate the Congress manifesto. While Khurshid has the experience, both Khatri and Pathan have been clearly rewarded for opposing the “dissenters” who had written to party chief Sonia Gandhi. It is not so much about their capability but the deliberateness with which the leadership is conveying a strict message —“stand with us or else face doom.” It also legitimises the family’s priority as the party’s own, never mind the impact it has on electoral prospects. If last year was difficult, the run-up to 2022 will be even more so given the BJP’s propaganda machinery and the RSS’ rapid network. Besides, Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath has scored quite a bit on perception value post-pandemic, UP being the first State to facilitate movement of migrants, providing jobs and now climbing the charts steadily on the ease of doing business index. If he does manage an economic recovery and meet public health challenges, the Congress would find it difficult to play issue-based politics. Yet that is what it exactly has to play, find and prop up credible issues before the BJP can, rather than draw on dynastic sustenance.
Also, Sonia may have silenced dissenting letter-writers, who in the end are decent and well-meaning Congressmen, but cannot ignore their conscience call that’s now cascading down to States. The same day the UP poll panels were set up, nine expelled party leaders wrote another letter to Sonia, asking that the party “rise above the affinity for the family.” The letter, dated September 2 and written by nine ex-Congress leaders, ironically asked the leadership to stand by the democratic values that Jawaharlal Nehru, Indira Gandhi and Rajiv Gandhi stood for. They said the cadres were depressed and emphasised the same concerns as the Delhi letter writers, those of “uncertainty, indecisiveness, lack of communication and lack of expression of thoughts.” Worse, they openly said that either the party president did not know anything or was looking the other way despite knowing everything. Although they have been expelled some time ago, the fact that they are as invested in party affairs means that the Congress is staring at schisms and dissension even as it prepares for the State polls. Such dissension in State units can easily be resolved if there is increased communication from the top leadership and inner party elections, which give members a reason to excel and earn their stripes. That’s why the Congress seniors, through their letter, had suggested ways and means of reviving the party while staying within the provisions and democratic processes already laid down in its constitution. They were worried that they had ceded the Opposition space to others nationally, were precariously perched in some States and had become the B-team in others as allies. So the hitback is sad news for the party, primarily its leadership, which has probably lost its last chance to self-correct, rise above ego, value honest counsel and appear selfless in the interest of a larger political legacy. The Congress last held elections in its working committee in 1998. With ad hocism and entitlement more the norm than the exception, the party’s core working module has fossilised with the same old faces and their same old genuflections instead of empowering and encouraging the ambitions of the new. Sonia could have showed wisdom, vaccinated the party against inertia and insured some future for her children. Now that looks like a distinct impossibility.
Tuesday, 08 September 2020 | Pioneer
