The Gandhis, a liability for Congress

With every election, the Congress finds itself in increasingly difficult and intractable situations from which an escape or recovery seems to be impossible in its present form and format. It has reduced itself to near nothing in the country’s most populous state, managed to lose most humiliatingly in a state where it was in power and lost three others which it could have won. It does not have representation in the legislature of one major state, West Bengal. The governments in the two states where it holds power face rebellions from within. It lost the position of the Leader of the Opposition in the Lok Sabha and will soon lose it the Rajya Sabha. Its governments sank mid-course in Madhya Pradesh and Karnataka, and its leaders and cadres are leaving it in droves to other parties. It is soon being reduced to just a label with a family stamp printed on it.

The party has been floundering under the leadership of the family for many years. Rahul Gandhi and Priyanka Gandhi led its campaign in the assembly elections with Sonia Gandhi as the invisible presence in the background, and the rejection of the party by the people means the rejection of the family too. Sonia Gandhi should have quit immediately after the latest debacle and let the party face its destiny on its own. But the outcome of Sunday’s Congress Working Committee decision showed that there is unlikely to be any change in her or her family’s position. They have no democratic authority to speak and act for the party and have only the family name to legitimise their positions and actions. Those who have questioned their positions have been sent to the doghouse. The stranglehold they have got on the party is authoritarian and undemocratic. The Congress’ fight for democracy must start from home if it has to be genuine and credible, and it should realise that the Gandhis are now a liability for it.

There is no democratically elected leadership for the party at any level. It suffers from organisational weakness and ideological confusion. A party which is burdened by its past and does not understand the present cannot find a future for itself. It has to reinvent itself if it wants to be relevant in the country and to be a part of its future. The Congress is still the largest party in the country after the BJP, with 20% of the national vote and a presence in all states. It has the most number of legislators after the BJP with about 700 MLAs across states, against the BJP’s 1,300. It should consider why it is still a party in decline. It is already late for the party to change, as the nation and its politics is getting ahead of it.