The leadership debate within Congress has got national attention for two reasons. One, that being the only pan India Opposition party, a lot rests on how the Congress is able to revive itself. Given the fact that there is a one-on-one fight between the Congress and the BJP for around 200 Lok Sabha seats, a weak Congress will ensure that the BJP remains in power for the next decade. As it is, most political analysts see the 2024 national elections as a walkover for Prime Minister Narendra Modi. The second reason why the state of Congress gets so much attention is simply that it is the only party that is having a leadership tussle right now. Whether it is the BJP or regional parties like the TMC, SP, DMK, YSRC, TRS, AIML, all have their leadership issues sorted.
The crux of the Congress problem is simple. Its current leadership consisting of the Gandhis are not cutting it with the voters. But, ironically they remain the glue that is holding the party together. To buttress the second argument we are reminded of the times when Narasimha Rao and Sitaram Kesri were at the helm of the party and the Congress split. However, that was also a time when Sonia Gandhi had not been tried and tested. And to be fair to her, she has since delivered on the mandate given to her. As Congress President, she ensured that the Congress remained united and that it headed a coalition government for a decade.
But now things have changed and Sonia has expressed a desire to quit. In her place, she is offering her son, former party chief Rahul Gandhi. This dynastic experiment has been tried before and found wanting. It’s not that Rahul cannot win elections, he can and has in the past; but the number of wins has dwindled considerably ever since Prime Minister Modi took charge. Given that Modi is not going anywhere, it is Rahul who will have to make the move. Either step down as the electoral face of the party, or else reinvent himself (yet again). Moreover, it is not that Rahul can keep the party united. If you look at all the leaders who have quit recently, very few of them belong to the Old Guard; most are erstwhile members of Team Rahul— Jyotiraditya Scindia, Jitin Prasada, RPN Singh, Sushmita Dev, Priyanka Chaturvedi, Ashok Tanwar to name a few. The Old Guard is still hanging around and has even formed a vocal group called the G 23 (+). This group is asking for reforms within the party, for elections to the CWC, and for collective decision-making.
So far the public reaction by the (current) Team Rahul is to view this entire exercise as auditioning for Rajya Sabha berths and other perks. But post the recent assembly drubbing the Gandhis are playing to the optics. There have been two meetings where Rahul met Bhupinder Hooda and Sonia met with Ghulam Nabi Azad. We are told that the G 23 leaders were given a patient hearing— but not much empathy by the looks of it because Congress still boycotted Azad’s Padma Bhushan award ceremony.
But all may not be in vain. Some sort of message seems to have wafted upwards for we are told that the Gandhi siblings are planning a pad yatra in April. Then there are the Congress President polls in September. If by then the G 23 and other concerned Congress leaders cannot put up a credible candidate against Rahul Gandhi, then they will get the leadership they deserve.
As a postscript, there was some logic in former finance minister P Chidambaram’s reply when asked why Congress did not change its leadership immediately after the results came in. As he pointed out, the party polls are due soon, so do you want us to replace one interim president with another just for a few months? He has a point, and so the country awaits the interim until the Congress gets its act together.