Can Congress work its plan?

The Congress party has tried to find new directions and to create a new political framework at its 85th plenary session in Raipur, Chhattisgarh. It has unveiled a political and governance agenda that looks like an election manifesto. This is important given that the party has to face key Assembly elections this year and an all-important Lok Sabha election next year. It has consciously tried to take a position fore-fronting social justice, going further from the more general welfare plank that it sought to implement during the time of the UPA government between 2004 and 2014. This is seen in the shift to accommodate the aspirations of the subaltern and the marginalised to regain its appeal among them, which it had lost after the rise of social justice parties in many states and the capture of some sections of these groups by the BJP. The promise of a caste census, a ministry for the Other Backward Classes (OBC) and reservation in higher judiciary for SC/ST/OBC are elements of the remodelling of the party. It has also decided to reserve half of the seats on the Congress Working Committee for SC/ST/OBC and women and minorities.

These are not cosmetic changes but amount to a total overhaul of the party’s position and image, and it remains to be seen whether it has the will to make it. Many of the decisions at the party’s Chintan Shivir in Udaipur last year are yet to be implemented. The party has also sought to expand its past social and economic welfare platform by promising a minimum income and social security for the poorest and most disadvantaged sections. It has presented a comprehensive welfare plan that focuses on the right to health, and promises pensions for single women, the elderly and persons with disabilities, among a number of other measures. It hopes to counter the BJP with these plans and has mooted new legislation against religious discrimination and hate crimes.

An agenda is not enough to make an impact on the people and to earn their support. Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge and certainly Rahul Gandhi, fresh from the Bharat Jodo Yatra and perhaps planning another yatra from Pasighat to Porbandar, would be projected as the party’s faces. But it should be noted that the party did not hold elections for the working committee but resorted to the familiar device of authorising the party president to make nominations. It has also decided to work with like-minded parties to fight the BJP. But it remains to be seen whether the position that it considers to be its in that fight will be accepted by other parties.