Falling off the Congress tree. Like autumn leaves?

The cliques and power centres within the party have alienated many, while various interests are pulling the grand old party in diverse directions.

New Delhi: On February 8, the BJP-led government tabled the white paper in Parliament. The 59-page document mentioned the multi-crore Adarsh scam. Five days later, on February 13, the BJP inducted one of the accused in this housing society fraud, Ashok Chavan, into the party. They even chose to “honour” his crossover from the Congress with a seat in the Rajya Sabha.

A few days before Chavan’s exit, former Maharashtra Minister Baba Siddique also walked out. On February 10, Siddique joined the Nationalist Congress Party, which was seen as a boost to the Ajit Pawar-led party ahead of the Lok Sabha elections.

In what appears like a back-to-back timeline on desertions, a lesser-known leader, but one with a lineage, Vibhakar Shastri, former Prime Minister Lal Bahadur Shastri’s grandson, alighted from the Congress van to join the saffron camp on February 14, saying an “ideology-less” I.N.D.I.A’s “only objective” was to defeat prime minister Narendra Modi.

This trend resonated in Assam as well but in a bizarre way. Two Assam Congress MLAs, Kamalakhya Dey Purkayastha, who quit as working president, and Basanta Das, announced support for Chief Minister Himanta Biswas Sarma, but without resigning from the Assembly or the party!

In Rajasthan, there are rumours that Mahendrajeet Singh Malaviya, an MLA and the Congress’ tribal face, who was inducted into the party’s Working Committee last August, maybe crossing over to the BJP.

This dramatic pan-India crossing over has happened during the past week! And more leaders seem to be climbing onto this crossover bandwagon. By the time one reads this, another Congress veteran, Kamal Nath, and his son, Nakul, an MP, may be inching towards the saffron camp. Kamal Nath has flown down to Delhi, and his son has deleted the mention of Congress from his social media handles, triggering speculation about another Congress loss.

Deora’s decision

Milind Deora was made Congress Joint Treasurer on December 23. And, 21 days later, on January 14, hours ahead of his “friend” Rahul Gandhi’s launch of the Bharat Jodo Nyay Yatra in Manipur, he quit the Congress. The Congress called it the BJP’s headline management. Deora went on to join Maharashtra Chief Minister Eknath Shinde's Shiv Sena faction and has also been "rewarded" with a Rajya Sabha ticket.

A two-term MP, Deora was apparently “upset” with the Congress for leaving the Mumbai South seat, which he had lost twice since 2014 by over one lakh votes, to its ally, the Shiv Sena (UBT)!

Rough terrain

As the country heads towards the Lok Sabha elections, the Congress is on an uneven pitch. The irony is that even its I.N.D.I.A allies are either deserting it or pushing it to a corner. And Congress does not seem to be doing enough to apply the brakes on this trend.

Political observers believed that the euphoria the Congress had generated with Rahul Gandhi’s Bharat Jodo Yatra, held between September 2022 and January 2023, and its thumping victory in Karnataka in May last year, was punctured after its electoral debacle in the Hindi heartland in November. Though it managed a good win in Telangana, it is on the edge in Himachal Pradesh, where it is back in power.

As a key pilot of the I.N.D.I.A, the grand old party has not been able to keep the bloc's members like the JD(U) and RLD on track. Earlier, the splits in the NCP and the Shiv Sena had anyway jolted the alliance.

Chavan and Deora will now have company in the Rajya Sabha as former union minister RPN Singh, who quit the Congress ahead of the Uttar Pradesh Assembly elections in 2022, is there on a BJP ticket. Like Deora, RPN was also considered a close Rahul aide.

‘Forced crossovers’

Giving another perspective, political analyst Sunil Gatade told DH, “Some of the desertions have direct links to investigations by proactive agencies. They are sort of forced.”

In fact, sources said Chavan met top Congress leaders, Sonia Gandhi and Mallikarjun Kharge, before quitting the party to explain why he was doing what he was doing. But a section of the Congress leaders were quick to point out the Adarsh scam and a “washing machine” at the BJP office that would “clean up” corruption allegations against Chavan.

The Congress has seen a number of desertions since 2014, mainly to the BJP. One count says at least 14 former chief ministers—from Ghulam Nabi Azad, Chavan, Amarinder Singh and Himanta to SM Krishna—had quit the party since 2014 after Modi assumed power. Of course, all of them did not go to the BJP, as leaders like Mukul Sangma and Luizinho Faleiro, have joined the Trinamool Congress.

‘Were’ Rahul aides

Several young leaders who were dubbed the Rahul brigade, like Jiten Prasada, Jyotiraditya Scindia, and Sushmita Dev, besides Deora and RPN, have left the party. 

Senior leaders Kapil Sibal, Rita Bahuguna Joshi, Sunil Jhakkar and Ashwani Kumar, as well as younger ones like Hardik Patel, Alpesh Thakore, Priyanka Chaturvedi, Anil Antony, and Jaiveer Shergill, have dumped the Congress.

Why the desertions?

The Congress has added to its woes by not addressing the aspirations of its leaders. The cliques and power centres within the party have alienated many, while various interests are pulling the party in diverse directions at a time when an overarching ruling party is being accused of structurally demolishing the Opposition.

As Gatade said, “These are not just usual political defections. There is a systematic attempt to decimate the opposition, which does not augur well for Parliamentary democracy. Maharashtra is an example.”

A few leaders believed some of these desertions could have been stopped if Rahul shunned his “people who are leaving tomorrow, should go today itself” attitude.

For now, some say, the Congress needs to be a bit flexible and take steps to retain its leaders.