Reviving Congress: The party is not even trying

Gandhis must make way for elections, new leaders

It is normal politics for an opposition party to take advantage of the failings of the government, but Congress, which is the main opposition party, has singularly failed to do that. The Narendra Modi government has to be held to account for its poor management of the pandemic situation. But the Congress could not make use of that or any other failure of the government in the recent assembly elections.

It performed disastrously and made yet another show of its growing irrelevance with the election outcome. Interim president Sonia Gandhi said there is the need to understand why the party failed and to draw the right lessons from it. But it does not seem to have done so.

Though Congress has a presence in all states, it is organisationally weak from top to bottom everywhere. Even two years after Rahul Gandhi quit as its president, the party has not been able to elect a president. Though it has become clear, election after election, that the Gandhi family’s domination can do no good to the party, it is unable to shake it off. Rahul Gandhi, who has no official party position, still takes major decisions.

Read more: Rahul Gandhi blames Narendra Modi for second Covid wave, says more to come if no vaccine strategy is in place

Organisational elections, which were once promised, have been postponed again and again. The leaders who asked for a new leadership were sidelined and even punished. The party needs new leaders, elected democratically and holding power and authority legitimately, not just at the top but at every level. If the party cannot ensure that, it cannot rejuvenate itself and take on the BJP. This must begin with the Gandhi family giving up its leadership position.

Apart from the leadership crisis and organisational disarray, the Congress has been weakened by its inability to counter the BJP on the level of ideas and an agenda in politics and governance. While Prime Minister Modi and the BJP may be blamed for the weakening of democracy, the rise in majoritarian sentiment and failure of governance, all this is also the result of the compromises and non-performance of the Congress in all these areas.

It has sometimes been ambiguous in its positions, maintained contradictory policies at other times and even tried to adopt and co-opt its rivals’ policies, creating confusion among the people about its identity and ideas. Recent elections have shown that regional parties are able to withstand the BJP’s challenge. Even in its emaciated state, Congress is the only party that can challenge the BJP at the national level. It is not easy for a party that is so down in the dumps to reinvigorate itself in three years when national elections are due. But Congress is not even trying.