We now face a stupendous challenge, a challenge that we accept and that we will meet with hard work and determination, these words were spoken by AICC President Sonia Gandhi at the Congress Parliamentary Party meeting last week, with reference to her party’s state of affairs in Uttar Pradesh after the assembly elections.
Going by the state of affairs in Congress, these words could have also meant the whole of the party, which is finding itself at the crossroads with the post-2004-election feel good atmosphere slowly dissipating into hard political realities of the day.
Rising prices, controversies like that of SEZs, continuing cases of farmers’ suicides in several states and losses in several Assembly elections are only some of the problems facing the party, which knows that it is going to face a few more difficult assembly elections in the run up to the 2009 general elections.
More worrying for the party is, as one senior leader pointed out, the perceived message going to the people that Congress is no more a party for the aam aadmi, the slogan that played a crucial role — as against NDA’s “India Shining” campaign — in unexpectedly bringing it to power in 2004.
In fact, sections within the party are quite happy that Panchayati Raj Minister Mani Shankar Aiyer has put the spotlight on this sensitive issue by commenting during a TV interview that the UPA government’s policies were tilted in favour of the elite and devoid of interests of the masses.
Party sources point out that the minister’s comments, combined with the Left allies’ demand, had brought out the issue of a crucial need for a mid-course correction.
According to one senior AICC leader, while Ms Gandhi had time and again been cautioning the government through her speeches from forums like the CPP about the need to contain prices of essential items and to have a “human face” while going ahead with developmental programmes like SEZs, by and large these have remained just speeches without getting converted into action.
“But unfortunately, our party is not even talking the aam aadmi language now. Even the UP campaign revolved around development and attacks on Samajwadi Party for its alleged misrule,” party sources said.
Meanwhile, with the air thick with expectation at the Congress headquarters over an impending reshuffle of the AICC office bearers, to select a fresh team that will steer the party into the general elections, the party is in two minds whether to continue with Rahul Gandhi’s current status as a freewheeling campaigner or make him hold some responsibility in the organisation by appointing him a general secretary.
While any Congressman worth his salt would not dare to speak otherwise, privately some of them are pointing out that the UP outcome showed that the Amethi MP has miles to go before he can actually lead the party into something as crucial and huge as the general elections.
Soon after the 2004 elections, the team that steered the campaign process, comprising Ambika Soni, Jairam Ramesh, Salman Khursheed, Suresh Pachauri and others, was disbanded with most of them getting ministerial berths. Even the Department of Policy Planning and Coordination (DEPCO), which helped formulate the campaign agenda and media management, was disbanded due to factional fights within the AICC leadership.
This, party observers believe, would make it even more interesting to watch how Ms Gandhi forms her new AICC team for the 2009 elections. Another big worry for the party right now is its state of affairs in UP and Bihar, which are the most crucial states for any party dreaming of ruling India on its own.
Congress, just two years ago, was in such a buoyant mood that it had started to claim that it would be in a position to come to power on its own by 2009. Now it looks like a distant dream, with its party base in both these states continuing to be in tatters.