Opinion: Go regional to revive Congress

By Amitava Mukherjee The Congress is now going through a customary charade. As it happens after every other election, a group of senior Congress leaders has voiced its despondency at the miserable performance of the party at the recently concluded State elections. This is not the first time that the leaders feel ‘pangs of conscience’ […]

By Amitava Mukherjee

The Congress is now going through a customary charade. As it happens after every other election, a group of senior Congress leaders has voiced its despondency at the miserable performance of the party at the recently concluded State elections. This is not the first time that the leaders feel ‘pangs of conscience’ in their hearts. They have felt it on previous occasions also in the recent past as the 137-year-old party has almost got itself habituated to losing elections one after another. But grit and guts are the two things which always elude them. In the past also they raised their half-hearted voices against the Nehru-Gandhi household as and when the Congress lost an election but lost no time to backtrack.

Re-acting Drama

The same drama is being re-acted now. The initial reaction after Congress’ dismal performance in Uttar Pradesh and Punjab was a shock. The G-23 group of leaders clamoured for an organisational overhaul. At this point, Sonia Gandhi played her master card. Sonia declared that she and her wards are prepared to resign in the interest of the party. This is exactly what the Congress needs at this juncture. But the G-23 leaders lost nerves. They shied away from what was expected of them.

So Sonia Gandhi has again taken the initiative. At the Congress Parliamentary Party meeting held this week, Sonia said, “I have received many suggestions on how to strengthen our organisation. Many are pertinent and I am working on them”.
The chain of events suggests that the G-23 leaders are ready to fall in line. But are they sure about their own goals? Records suggest they are not. Ghulam Nabi Azad, one of the dissident leaders, met Sonia Gandhi recently. Newspapers reported that their discussion centred around the question of setting up a parliamentary board where both pro-Rahul Gandhi and G-23 members would find a place. There will be a new president of the party but he must be acceptable to the Nehru-Gandhi household and the G-23 leaders. Sonia has suddenly activated herself. She has been meeting party functionaries. But no one is raising the fundamental question — how far the shadow of the Nehru-Gandhi household will be allowed to cast its spell on the Congress?

Pre-1969 Days, Rise of Indira

A parliamentary board or not, the Congress will not be able to bounce back if it does not break free from the Nehru-Gandhi household tag and go back to the pre-1969 days when the party had powerful regional leaders like Bidhan Chandra Roy in West Bengal, Shri Krishna Sinha in Bihar, Gopinath Bordoloi in Assam, Sucheta Kripalani in Uttar Pradesh, Nijalingappa in Mysore etc. The Congress had solid grassroots support in those days. From 1952 to 1984, its vote share in Lok Sabha elections hovered around 40% but its seat tally always remained on the plus side of 350 except in the years 1967 and 1977 when the party fared poorly. The year 1967 marked three things — the rise of Indira Gandhi, the first wide chasm in the Congress and the rise of regional parties. 1977 showed the worst rot in the Congress against the backdrop of Indira Gandhi’s emergency.

One thing is certain — with the rise of Indira Gandhi, the slow decimation of the Congress had started. The party’s thumping victories in the 1971 parliamentary and 1972 State Assembly elections were only spurred by some ephemeral phenomena like Indira’s various populist measures after the 1969 split and India’s victory over Bangladesh in the 1971 war.

Warning Signal of 1967

In the midst of celebrations over the party’s victories in 1971 and 1972, the Congress leaders and workers failed to pick up the warning signal that the 1967 general election had given when the party’s Lok Sabha tally had come down to 283. This election had signalled the rise of the middle castes — the other backward castes of later days — that had started switching their loyalties from the Congress to the regional parties. This process got aggravated in later years contributing to the Congress’ electoral downfall to a great extent.

It is now crystal clear that the Congress has not taken lessons from the past. The G-23 is playing hide and seek. Most of the leaders of this group have thrived on the Nehru-Gandhi family patronage. Even Ghulam Nabi Azad had once sung paeans for ‘Rahul Gandhi’s many qualities’ after an electoral debacle of the Congress. But if the Congress wants to stay afloat, then the party bigwigs must put their heads together and analyse why the Congress is steadily losing not just seats but the percentage of votes as well. Even in 1977 when the Congress fared miserably by winning only 154 seats, the party’s vote percentage stood a little over 34%. But from 1984 to 2009, it is a saga of steadily losing ground and on no occasion, the party could leave any signal to prove that it will be able to take the centre of Indian politics again.
The G-23 leaders are no doubt eager to see the Congress finding its strong feet again. But still, there is no sign that they have recognised the importance of the rise of the Aam Admi Party (AAP) in Indian politics and the threat it poses to Congress’ existence. AAP’s greatest forte is that its policies and programmes exhibit signs of a left-of-centre party which always holds out great appeals to the middle, lower-middle and the working-class population. Till the time of Indira Gandhi, this segment of the electorate was the main prop of the Congress. With the onset of Manmohan Singh’s new economic policy, seeds of disillusionment were first sown among this class of voters. It is clear that the G-23 leaders are yet to take note of the impact that such a break with the party’s past economic policies has left on the Congress’ electoral fortunes
Still, the Congress in 2022 can make a fresh beginning if it comes out of the family-oriented organisational structure. Unfortunately, signs of it are not forthcoming.

(The author is a senior journalist and commentator)