The Congress party will celebrate its 136th birthday on December 28. It is time for the Grand Old Party to look back and look forward. Facing a leadership crisis with two reluctant leaders at the top – Sonia Gandhi and her son Rahul Gandhi- the party is going through its worst-ever internal crisis.
Sonia and Rahul have been declaring after every poll defeat that the party needs to be reorganised with no results so far. The old guard versus young Turks, factional fights, indiscipline, lack of direction, lack of narrative, and leadership crisis are dogging the party.
Sonia Gandhi has to reflect on why the family is getting isolated when she could bring the party to power not once but twice in 2004 and 2009 and why the party is facing a disconnect with the voters.
Facing health problems she wants to hand over the party back to her son. Rahul resigned in August 2019, owning responsibility for the party’s humiliating performance in the general elections. However, he continues to be the de facto head without any responsibility.
After the poor performance in the Delhi and Bihar Assembly polls as well as the Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation and Kerala municipal polls last month, the dissidents have raised their banner of revolt. Pushed to the wall, they are clamouring for course correction and a complete reorganisation of the party as well as responsibility fixed on the leadership.
Eyebrows were raised at a letter written by 23 leaders in August to the party chief seeking change. A group of senior leaders, including the Leader of the Opposition in the Rajya Sabha Ghulam Nabi Azad, Deputy Leader Anand Sharma, former Haryana Chief Minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda, former Maharashtra Chief Minister Prithviraj Chavan, and former Union Minister Shashi Tharoor had signed the letter. Former Finance Minister P. Chidambaram, Madhya Pradesh Congress chief Kamal Nath had also expressed their concern.
Nervous after direct attacks on the Gandhi family, Sonia Gandhi’s priority is to set the house in order. But before that, she has to bring unity. So she is trying to assuage the feelings of the dissenting leaders in the party and sought rapprochement with the dissidents with a face-to-face meeting on Saturday.
It was the first time she has met them after the break out of the Coronavirus. It was a last-ditch attempt to reach out to the dissenters and break their ranks. Her priority is how to get her son Rahul Gandhi as the president again. By inviting the rebel leaders, Sonia Gandhi has sent out a message that the Gandhi family respects its loyalists and honours seniority.
To end the sense of drift, Rahul Gandhi declared that he was willing to take any responsibility given by the party, thus showing his willingness to come back as party chief. Instead of being rude to the old guard, the family showed a reconciliatory mood.
The Congress is expected to announce the dates for a plenary session to elect the new Congress president. After Saturday, it is also clear that it will hold a conclave as it did earlier in Pachmarhi and Shimla to involve a larger group of Congress leaders and workers.
The second reason is the upcoming Assembly polls to five states – Kerala, Tamil Nadu, West Bengal, Assam, and Puducherry. The Congress is ruling only in Puducherry. The party is now reduced to third or fourth position while the BJP has moved up to the second position in West Bengal and has captured power in Assam. Also, the other parties are ahead in poll readiness.
With hardly a few months left, the Congress has to sort out many things in the poll-bound states.
It has firmed up an alliance with the DMK and its allies in Tamil Nadu. But in Kerala, going by the recent civic body polls where the ruling combine LDF has done much better than the Congress-led UDF, the party has to chalk out a new strategy. The UDF and the LDF alternate in power in Kerala and it is the turn of the UDF now. As for Assam, it is still not clear about the alliances. After the demise of former chief minister Tarun Gogoi recently, there is no tall leader in Assam.
In West Bengal, the fight is between the ruling Trinomial Congress and the BJP. The Congress has tied up with the CPI-M but how effective the combine will be is not known. Both parties had earlier ruled the state but Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee has finished them since 2011. The BJP has now become the main opposition party.
Thirdly, the opposition parties are disappointed with the Congress not taking leadership of the opposition. The regional satraps propose to form a federal front minus Congress isolating Congress. The satraps are looking to the Nationalist Congress Party chief Sharad Pawar for guidance.
The party has lost touch with the people and is living in its past glory. Facing an aggressive BJP and the growing clout of the regional satraps, Congress needs to reform, reconnect with the voters, and find a new narrative. These are quite complex with a leadership crisis in the party. The Congress needs a vote catcher, 24/7 dedicated leadership and a new direction.
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