BJP grooms young, Congress can't hold on to them

While Sachin Pilot episode highlighted the lack of a generational change in the Congress party’s central and state leadership, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) is preparing for another round of generational shift in the key party roles this month, with at least 30% of new faces.

After coming to power in 2014 at the Centre, the BJP kept mentoring future leadership, amid the flak invited for creating a Mardarshak Mandal in which party veterans like L K Advani and Murali Manohar Joshi were pushed, instead of being inducted into the Narendra Modi cabinet or being assigned major roles in the party.

In 2017, when the Modi government carried out a major cabinet reshuffle, the attempt to bring in a new leadership was evident when Nirmala Sitharaman, Dharmendra Pradhan and Piyush Goyal were given key portfolios of defence, petroleum and railways.

In 2019, many seniors in the BJP were pushed into backstage. Radhamohan Singh (70) who held the agriculture portfolio was pushed to party work. Former steel minister Chaudhary Birender Singh (74) was not allowed to contest.

In the new Union cabinet, many young leaders became ministers. Gajendra Singh Shekhawat (52), a replacement to Vasundhara Raje in Rajasthan and Nityanand Rai (54) projected for a larger role in OBC-dominated politics of Bihar were among them.

UP’s Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath is 48 while Uttarakhand Chief Minister Trivendra Singh Rawat is 59.

In contrast, the Congress is still stuck with elder leaders and the Gandhi dynasty. In the melee, many young leaders promoted by Rahul Gandhi moved over to greener pastures or quit, after slamming the senior leaders.

Take the case of Sheila Dikshit, who lost to Arvind Kejriwal in 2013 after a 15 year-long-stint in which no second-rung leadership was allowed to develop. In 2017, Congress projected 78-year-old Sheila as the CM face for Uttar Pradesh and tasted defeat yet again.

In most states, Congress has fallen back on veterans barring Chhattisgarh where Bhupesh Baghel (58) helmed the party affairs, after party veteran, 70-year-old Ajit Jogi quit the party in June 2016.

In Odisha, where Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik of BJD is now 73, BJP has promoted Dharmendra Pradhan (51) and Baijayant Panda (56). In sharp contrast, Odisha Congress chief Niranjan Patnaik is 72.

In 2017 Virbhadra Singh (83) was the Congress face in Himachal Pradesh. The party now lacks young leadership in the state. The same is true for Punjab where Amarinder Singh (78) still calls the shots. Jyotiraditya Scindia (49) and Pilot (42) are the recent examples of young leaders sidelined in the party.

The Congress, thus, is in the danger of becoming irrelevant among the youth-dominated voter demography in near-future, with a vacuum in leadership, while the BJP will be ready with an army of young and energetic politicos.