oppn parties The Congress Must Reinvent Itself For The Good Of The Nation

News Snippets

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  • In Assam, a controversy erupted after a picture of UPPL leader Benjamin Basumatary, lying on a stack of Rs 500 notes circulated on social media. UPPL is an ally of the BJP
  • AAP's Jalandhar-West MP Sushil Kumar Rinku joins the BJP. He was the only AAP Lok Sabha MP
  • Supreme Court dismisses Centre's plea to review its 2023 verdict in the PMLA case
  • Close save for passengers as they remain unhurt after the wings of two planes graze at Kolkata airport. Pilots derostered and inquiry ordered by DGCA
  • Bengal BJP leader Dilip Ghosh gets notice from the EC as well as the BJP for making ugly remarks about Mamata Banerjee's parentage
  • Sadanand Vasanth Date, who faught terrorists in the 26/11 attack and was awarded the Preisent's Police medal, has been appointed the head of the NIA
  • Centre will borrow Rs 7.5L cr in the first six months of FY25, nearly 50% of the target for the full year
  • 25 stocks, including SBI, will see same day trade settlements from today in the world's fastest settlement mode in both BSE and NSE
  • Stocks recover smartly on Wednesday: Sensex rises 526 points to 72996 and Nifty 118 points to 22123
  • Tennis: Rohan Bopanna-Matthew Ebden reached the semifinals of the Miami Open
  • IPL: records tumble as SRH beat MI in a high-scoring match. SRH score 277/3 with 18 sixes and Mumbai score 246 with 20 sixes to fall short by 31 runs. Atotal of 38 sixes, highest in an IPL match were hit and both teams combined to score 523 runs, the highest aggregate in an IPL match
  • Amul will launch fresh milk in the US
  • IPL: RCB beat Punjab by 4 wickets as Kohli and Karthik shine with the bat
  • India strongly objected to German foreign office remarks over the arrest of delhi CM Arvind Kejriwal, called it "biased assumptions"
Delhi Lt Governor Vinai Kumar Saxena says government cannot be run from jail, hints at President's Rule in the capital ////// In a dangerous incident, the wings of two planes grazed while taxiing on the runway at Kolkata airport, all passengers were safe but DGCA ordered an inquiry and the pilots were derostered
oppn parties
The Congress Must Reinvent Itself For The Good Of The Nation

By A Special Correspondent
First publised on 2020-12-14 09:07:37

What the late ex-President and Congress leader Pranab Mukherjee is reported to have written in his soon-to-be-published memoirs should not surprise or shock many. It is no secret that the Congress suffered a huge setback in 2014 mainly due to Sonia Gandhi and Manmohan Singh and what they did (and did not do) from 2009 to 2014. Mukherjee could have also added that the rush to push Rahul Gandhi as the main contender for the top post was also responsible, but perhaps that goes without saying.

Mukherjee says that "some members of the Congress have theorized that, had I become the PM in 2004, the party might have averted the 2014 Lok Sabha drubbing. Though I don't subscribe to this view, I do believe that the party's leadership lost political focus after my elevation as president. While Sonia Gandhi was unable to handle the affairs of the party, Dr (Manmohan) Singh's prolonged absence from the House put an end to any personal contact with other MPs." In Mukherjee's view "the moral authority to govern vests with the PM. The overall state of the nation is reflective of the functioning of the PM and his administration". He says that "Dr Singh was preoccupied with saving the coalition, which took a toll on governance".

At other times, this could have been treated as the personal view of one person, although a very astute and experienced politician who had served the Congress and the nation with distinction. But Pranab Mukherjee's views become extremely important as the country is still watching a disinterested Sonia Gandhi taking the Congress to depths from which it will be very difficult to rise again.

Any democracy needs both a strong government and an equally strong opposition. Despite being the party with the biggest all-India infrastructure and acceptance, the Congress has abdicated its duty of being a responsible opposition. It seems that the party has thrown in the towel in the face of a calculated assault by the BJP. Its responses are poor and it is seen to be doing what the BJP wants it to do. It has lost the backing of its core constituency of the backward classes and the Muslims. It has persisted with the policy of Rahul Gandhi being the only person who can take on Modi, with disastrous results. In short, it has allowed the BJP to decimate it.

The Congress should listen to the dissenting voices in the party and come up with a calibrated plan to revive the party. It must start with the appointment/election of a full time president and a new AICC. It should have a shadow cabinet and give Modi's ministers a run for their money. If the party decides to give Rahul Gandhi a free hand, he must be allowed to get rid of the old guard and form his own team. A combination of both is not working and is not going to work. New challenges need out-of-the-box responses. The time for that is now.