If nothing succeeds like success, nothing fails like failure either. This adage is best illustrated by the sharp contrast between the buoyant mood of the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party — especially after its emergence as the largest party in the elections in Maharashtra and its decisive victory in Haryana where it barely existed — and the pathetic plight of the Congress. Many are making a valid comment and asking a pertinent question. They say that on several of its promises to be completed within its first 100 days the Narendra Modi government hasn’t delivered. But it has been briskly busy in governance at home, in diplomacy abroad and, above all, in its energetic efforts to win the Assembly elections in Maharashtra and Haryana. What on earth, they ask, has the Congress done during this period? Shouldn’t it have been working hard to revive itself after its near-decimation?
The answer to the question is that after the drubbing in the Lok Sabha polls, Congress president Sonia Gandhi did summon a meeting of the “enlarged” Congress Working Committee at which she and her son Rahul, who is the party’s vice-president, “accepted” their responsibility for the electoral disaster and offered to resign. Apparently, according to a pre-scripted play, everybody screamed that there was absolutely no reason for mother and son to quit and therefore their resignations could not be accepted. Thereafter, there has been no Congress conclave of any size to analyse the reasons for the electoral debacle and embark on the necessary task of bringing the desolate party back to life. To the query as to why even the compact Congress Core Committee — which, during the last decade, was India’s equivalent of the Standing Committee of the Politburo of the Chinese Communist Party — had not met yet, the answer was that this committee no longer exists because it was meant only for coordination between the party and the Manmohan Singh government!
One understandable explanation for inactivity, given by some Congress sources, is that it would have been inadvisable to have a large and perhaps divided congregation to discuss the shattering defeat in the Lok Sabha polls before the end of the Assembly elections in Maharashtra and Haryana. But then why didn’t the party fight the battle in Maharashtra, its bastion for long years, with greater vigour than it did? The relatively few rallies of Mrs Gandhi and Mr Rahul Gandhi gave the impression that they had given the game away in advance. Ironically, the uneasy, long-term alliance between the Congress and the National Congress Party of Sharad Pawar broke down and, as soon as election results were announced, the NCP offered the BJP “unconditional support from the outside” to form a stable government. Until that moment the joint cry of these two ex-partners had been that, as secularists, they were “waging a war against communalism”.
What happens now remains to be seen. However, over the last few days two senior Congress leaders, former finance minister P. Chidambaram and former Chief Minister of Madhya Pradesh Digvijaya Singh, have been giving interviews to various TV news channels which vaguely indicate the shape of things to come. The duo is agreed on some crucial points: The Congress morale is “low” and, therefore, the party has to “reinvent” itself. Yet both also assert that Mrs Gandhi is “our top leader” and the decision at Jaipur to elevate “Rahulji” to the position of the party’s vice-president was “absolutely right”, meaning that when the time comes, he would be the next Congress president. Both also said that they would advise their “two leaders” to “speak more” and address more rallies. Mr Chidambaram did say, in reply to a question, that someone not belonging to the Gandhi family could “some day” become Congress president but he could not say when. Mr Singh, however, took strong exception to an anchor’s remark that there was a widespread impression in the country that the young Mr Gandhi lacked leadership qualities and was therefore unequal to the task of bringing the Congress back to power.
On the critically important issue of “reinventing the Congress”, Mr Singh was asked how would this be done. His answer was: “According to A.K. Antony’s report”. The natural supplementary by the anchor was: “What does the Antony report say?” Mr Singh: “I don’t know because I haven’t read the report”. In reply to other questions, he revealed that the report had been read only by the members of the Antony Committee and the Congress president. He seemed to imply that there was nothing wrong with this because he was sure that the Congress president would take the “appropriate action” at the right time.
Even this brief narrative underscores Congress’ two lethal problems: First, that whatever be the performance of the Gandhis, the party cannot do without the dynasty’s leadership because otherwise the party would disintegrate. For, even if half a dozen Congress leaders were capable of being Congress president, they would all refuse to work under any one of them. Second, the cult of sycophancy makes any frank discussion within the party impossible. It is all the more significant, therefore, that during the declaration of election results in Maharashtra and Haryana, there were demonstrations at the AICC headquarters, demanding “Priyanka Lao, Congress Bachao”. Those floating this idea do not seem to realise that she would have to carry the heavy cross of her husband, Robert Vadra.
As for the Congress’ hope of staging a comeback, as it did after the 1977 post-Emergency poll, the two situations are starkly different. At her nadir Indira Gandhi had 150 Lok Sabha seats and a third of the votes. Today, out of the 543 Lok Sabha constituencies there are 309 in which the Congress is in the third or fourth position. Most importantly, no member of the present generation of the family has Indira Gandhi’s mass following and political skills.
