VIEWPOINT
AMITABH SHUKLA
The vanishing act of Rahul Gandhi
has led to a lot of speculations and triggered a wave of expectations as to
what would happen after his return. A case has been made out where old and new
Congress leaders are apprehending a series of changes in the party after the
heir apparent becomes Congress president sometime in April.
The more the 130-year-old party
changes, the more it remains the same. Rahul Gandhi has been an MP for a long
time now, also a general secretary for the party for over half a decade and a
vice president for over two years. He is de facto the no. 1 in his party even though his mother is
the Congress president.
Towards the close of the last
term of UPA, the 44-year-old Rahul assumed almost total control of the party in
its entire decision making. Sonia Gandhi merely has the veto power as of now.
Everyone in the party and even outside it has seen how he functions, how he
speaks in public meetings, what kind of role he plays as an MP in Lok Sabha,
and what kind of leadership abilities he has shown over the last few years.
So it would be interesting to see
what kind of change is brought in the party structure after Rahul assumes
complete control and takes decisions independently without the influence of the
old guard. Given the way Congress has been functioning over the years and
decades and how Rahul has himself worked, I do not visualise any drastic
changes and whatever steps are taken by the new dispensation in the party would
merely be cosmetic.
For instance when Rahul becomes
the president, his mother could be elevated as the patron of the party or
another suitable designation could be found for her. It is extremely difficult
to visualise Sonia Gandhi retiring from public life completely in favour of her
son.
This has never happened in Gandhi family, no
one has ever retired. Jawaharlal Nehru died as a Prime Minister in 1964 and so
did Indira Gandhi when she was assassinated two decades later in 1984. Her
younger son Sanjay died in a plane crash in 1980 and the elder son Rajiv Gandhi
assassinated while leading his party’s campaign to return to power in 1991.
In Congress like most of the
parties, ‘Power’ is worship — a glue which binds the party and Sonia Gandhi
must have realised this over the years as the longest-serving party president.
Retiring from public life in such a situation would perhaps be the last option.
So the point is even if Rahul
becomes party chief, Sonia would continue to hold considerable power in the
power structure of the party with whatever designation she has. In such a
scenario, Rahul will have to abide by the veto power of his mother. If that
remains the case, she will continue to have her own set of loyalists in some
position of power or the other.
At the most, Rahul would change
or reshuffle a few general secretaries and make changes in the AICC
Secretariat. Some old Sonia loyalists like Janardan Dwivedi, Motilal Vora and a
couple more may find themselves in the cold. Like Narendra Modi’s Cabinet where
the age limit is 75 years, he may bring in a retirement policy and fix an age
ceiling for the leaders. Some could be forcibly retired by the young and
impatient Rahul. But will that change the face of the Congress? Extremely
unlikely.
In the last three years, Rahul
has taken most of the important decisions of Congress and almost all of them
have boomeranged on the party and proved to be non-starters. The first major
decision was to single-handedly fight the Uttar Pradesh elections of February
2012.
Rahul chose all the candidates, carpet bombed
UP with a series of meetings and created a hype, something unheard of in the
Congress. The disaster was there for all to see with the Congress barely
getting over a dozen seats and all Rahul camp followers having egg on their
face.
Of course, the most recent
disaster was the 2014 Lok Sabha polls where Rahul was the Prime Ministerial
candidate of the party and Congress returned with the most disastrous
performance in the history of Indian elections and failed even to get 10 per cent
seats and the position of Leader of Opposition in Lok Sabha.
There were many electoral
reverses all the way where Rahul led from the front and except Karnataka in May
2013, the party failed to win even the State elections anywhere in the country.
The situation has come to such a pass in the Congress now that it is finding it
difficult to win even the municipal polls in States where it had complete
control on all the levels of power not long ago. In fact, changes like making
Sachin Pilot the President of Rajasthan Congress was entirely Rahul’s idea.
It did not change the fortunes of the party
where BJP got three-fourths of a majority. Making Ashok Tanwar, the President
of Haryana Congress too was the brainchild of Rahul. It didn’t have any impact
as BJP swept to power for the first time in the State. In Delhi ,
Ajay Maken, a hardcore Rahul loyalist, has two successive failures in his
report card.
He was first made the media face of the
Congress ahead of the Lok Sabha polls by Rahul and the results were disastrous.
Soon, the Congress vice president sent him to Delhi
as the chief ministerial candidate of the party by Rahul and he not only lost
his seat but the party failed to even open its account in the Assembly.
I am not sure if any decision
taken by Rahul has proved to be electorally beneficial for his party in the
recent months and years. There is no magic wand for Congress and Rahul. The
crisis is deep and is there for all to see. Rahul will have to sweat it out in
the dusty lanes and bylanes, villages and cities of the country to build a base
for the party afresh.
Instead he chose a vacation for
no one knows what. He will have to grind it the hard way, innovate new
communication strategy and devise ways and means to connect to the youth. He will have to lead from the front, counter
the ruling party more effectively than he has done till now, be accessible to
the party leaders and workers and provide answers to the questions which the
people and Congress workers want. The million dollar question: Is Rahul willing
to do that? Only he will be able to answer it in the next few months after
taking over as the Congress president from his mother, if that indeed is the
plan. (March 16, 2015 )
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