Friday, 17 May, 2024
By: Anshul Vipat
Just a day after Jaiveer Shergill quit the party, veteran leader Ghulam Nabi Azad also announced his decision of stepping away from the party.
The very fact that the former Jammu and Kashmir chief minister has blamed the Gandhi’s for destroying consultative mechanisms within the party underlines the mass discontent within the party. It’s also important to note that Azad was a member of G23 grouping, a faction of senior leaders who have been demanding seeking major organizational changes within the party.
Anand Sharma, who was also a member of the grouping had quit the party poll panel citing discontent. Another member of the group Kapil Sibal had resigned from the party in May. Prior to Sibal, former Punjab Congress Chief Sunil Jakhar had left the party only to join the BJP. Former Law Minister Ashwani Kumar and ex Union Minister RPN Singh too parted ways with the Congress and lately Hardik Patel, the Gujarat Congress working president, too left the party.
Has Congress become a sinking ship?
The oldest political party in the country has been in a bad shape since 2014, but things have got much worse after its defeat in the 2019 general election and with a string of dismal performance in assembly elections in recent years. Congress is witnessing a resignation spree with its young and popular leaders switching sides for better opportunities and positions. Some of the turncoats are now serving either as ministers or MPs in the parties they have joined.
Worst still, many of the ex-Congressmen who had quit the party has been forefront in wiping out Congress from their respective states. Consider Himanta Biswa Sarma for example. He had accused Rahul Gandhi of neglecting and shunting him out of the Congress party, an insult that drove him to leave Congress. Sarma, who was still a member of the Congress party at the time, met with Rahul to address Assam's difficulties in the run-up to the 2016 Assam assembly elections. But a lukewarm response from the party vice-president forced Sarma to quit the party.
When Sarma joined BJP, Congress was in power in five of the eight Northeastern states. Today, the Congress has been virtually wiped out, with the BJP-led NDA in power in all northeastern states. Along with Sarma, who is currently the chief minister of Assam, Manipur's chief minister N Biren Singh, Arunachal Pradesh's chief minister Pema Khandu, Nagaland's chief minister Neiphiu Rio were former Congress members. These eight states have a total of 26 Lok Sabha seats, with the Congress party holding four seats and the BJP holding 14 seats, the most of any political party.
YS Jagan Mohan Reddy's story is not a different one. The young Andhra Pradesh Congress leader had launched a statewide tour after the death of his father and the then-chief minister Y. S. Rajasekhara Reddy in 2011 The Congress party’s central leadership had directed him to call it off. He refused and quit the party and announced the formation of YSR Congress. His party won 70 seats in 2014, the second highest in the state. Five years later, YSR, he led the party to a landslide victory winning 151 out of 175 seats. In sharp contrast, Congress which had a majority in 2009 could win only 22 seats in 2014. In 2019 state polls, Congress drew a blank.
Congress’s leadership crisis
One of the major criticisms of Congress is its dynasty politics and lack of leadership transparency. The party is headed by a member of the Gandhi family continuously since 1998. In 2013, Rahul Gandhi was made party's vice-president. It was thought that his elevation would boost party's prospects. But the opposite happened. Barring a few, party's electoral performance has been poor. The situation hasn't changed much since Rahul was promoted as party's president in 2017, just a few days before Gujarat elections. Infact, the situation has got much worse since then.
The party had to face its second consecutive defeat in Loksabha polls. It could only increase its tally by eight. The party could not muster enough seats to get the opposition party status in the Loksabha, a situation similar to 2014. Rahul himself lost his home bastion Amethi. He was defeated by Smriti Irani by over 55,000 votes. This was the seat that had witnessed victories of his mother Sonia Gandhi, father Rajiv Gandhi and his uncle Sanjay Gandhi.
Infact, data shows the party has not been able to win a single Assembly election since the 2019 debacle. The grand old party's last assembly victory came in 2018 when it had won Rajasthan, Chhattisgarh and Madhya Pradesh. It lost the latter state due to internal infighting. Out of the 17 states that went into polls since 2019, Congress' vote share remained between five per cent and 16 per cent. 12 out of these 17 states saw a drop in the vote share. Today, it is in power only in Rajasthan and Chhattisgarh and remains a minor partner in the collation governments in Jharkhand, Bihar and Tamil Nadu, led by the JMM, JDU and DMK respectively.
Congress is scheduled to elect its new president shortly. If recent reports are to be believed, Rahul Gandhi is reluctant to accept any responsibility officially. It is believed that he is vouching for a non-Gandhi president. The name of veteran leaders like Ashok Gehlot is doing the rounds. However, the long list of resignations and open discontent among the party is likely to force the party to chalk out its plans again.
It’s a matter of great introspection for the party; whose vote share used to touch 50 percent three decades ago could not even gather 20 percent votes in the country in 2019. The string of resignations only exposes the problems. By the end of this year, we will see elections in Gujarat and Himachal Pradesh. In the former, BJP has been in power for 27 years. Yet, the current trends do not suggest any hope for the Congress. Neither does it seems it will be able to muster a regime change in the 2024 general elections.
As the party looks forward for Bharat Jodo yatra scheduled to begin from September 7, their first priority should be 'Congress Jodo'.
