The Congress Party: The Decline Continues Unchecked
Editor-in-Chief of indiacommentary.com. Current Affairs analyst and political commentator.
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By Sunil Garodia
First publised on 2020-11-18 08:54:55
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Editor-in-Chief of indiacommentary.com. Current Affairs analyst and political commentator.
View all posts by this Author
A committee set up by interim Congress president Sonia Gandhi to assist her in organizational matters met virtually yesterday evening. Although the media was not briefed about the agenda and the discussions that took place, it is being reported that the deliberations were about the recent poll debacles in Bihar, Madhya Pradesh, Gujarat, Manipur and Karnataka. This is clear as the leaders looking after these states, though not part of the committee, were special invitees to the meeting.
The meeting assumed importance after the outburst from Kapil Sibal after the Bihar elections when the senior leader expressed his displeasure once again about the way the party was being managed (or mismanaged) and was suffering consecutive losses in elections all over the country. Sibal also said that since the party did not have a forum where he could express his views, he was forced to make them public. While some leaders backed Sibal, Ashok Gehlot and Salman Khurshid criticized him.
To an independent observer, it is clear that the Congress party is not being managed well. The success in Rajasthan, where it managed to bring Sachin Pilot back in the fold, was an exception. Although its ways are not correct, the BJP has been successful in creating divisions in the Congress and use it to its advantage. Hence, even where the Congress has been successful in the elections (Karnataka, Madhya Pradesh), it has yielded ground to the BJP because it could not manage the internal affairs of the party.
In Bihar, the Congress overestimated its popularity and demanded and contested on more seats than its standing allowed. This was against coalition dharma and it was largely responsible for the defeat of the MGB. Also, neither Rahul Gandhi nor Sonia Gandhi campaigned seriously in the state. The Congress candidates that won in Bihar were mostly local heavyweights who would have won even as independents. The party had little role in their success. Its total wipeout in Gujarat raises the question why a novice like Hardik Patel has been given charge of the state. In Madhya Pradesh, turncoats were able to snatch seats as BJP candidates where people had voted for the Congress in the regular elections.
The state of decline shows the weakness of the leadership which the leadership itself and the cohorts surrounding it are neither acknowledging nor making attempts to rectify. Meetings are held after each debacle and new people are handed responsibility. But the party does not seem to have a plan to counter the BJP. It seems to be banking on the BJP making mistakes or for anti-incumbency to set in. But it must know that if it is not able to recover its position as an all-India alternative to the BJP, even in the case of a vote for anti-incumbency, the next elections might throw up a parliament mainly composed of regional parties and the Congress will have lesser seats than some of them. It will then not be in a position to assume leadership and will be consigned to play the role of a junior partner in any post-poll alliance that will form the government.
