The Congress Debacle

 

The Congress Debacle

It is very disheartening to see the 136-year-old Indian National Congress losing electoral battles ever since the ascendance to power of Narendra Modi in 2014. No one expected it to lose the elections so badly in the five states that went  to polls. The people didn’t expect the Grand Old Party - the national opposition - to get decimated in this manner.

 

The Congress inflicted self-injury in Punjab. It was indecisiveness and failure of the leadership that created a quicksand for itself. The appointment of Navjot Singh Sidhu, a whimsical character, as the PCC President was a big blunder, followed by the forced resignation of Amarinder Singh, due to Sidhu’s relentless attack on him.  Then having installed Charanjit Singh Channi as the Chief Minister, the bickering in the party should have stopped. That Sidhu was allowed to continue to target Amarinder Singh and criticise even Channi, and charge his own party government of multiple failures, day-in- day out in public till the election, was the last thing the party should have tolerated.  Had the party, took disciplinary action against him, it would have fought the electoral battle as a coherent unit, and saved the ignominy of getting thrashed so severely by a relatively new political outfit- the Aam Aadmi Party- whose main contestants were defectors from Congress and BJP.

 

In other four states, the Congress faced an incumbent BJP government with myriad problems. In Uttarakhand, the BJP changed two CMs, in Goa there was clear disaffection with the CM Pramod Sawant, and in Manipur against N. Biren Singh. The Congress failed to encash these opportunities. In Goa and Manipur, the BJP had engineered defections from the Congress and captured power.  And yet, the Congress was unable to unseat the BJP in these states. P. Chidambaram’s explanation that in Goa the party lost because of the split in anti-BJP votes does not hold water. In democracy, we can’t expect political parties not to extend their footprint in as many states as they wish.  Both in Punjab and Manipur it was also a multi- cornered contest and AAP and BJP registered thumping victory.  Why the Congress could not win in Uttarakhand, where it was a straight contest with the BJP?   

 

In UP, once the Congress bastion, the party is almost extinct, with the vote share crashing to less than 3% from more than 6% in 2017. This is in spite of Priyanka Gandhi carrying a spirited campaign in the State. She enrolled lacks of members; tried to rebuild the party’s organizational structure ;and galvanized the  party with more than 17,000 leaders and workers jailed in the past two years for agitating on various issues, particularly the assault and  violence against  the women. She wanted to change the electoral grammar by announcing 40% reservation of seats for women and bring about social transformation, in a state where people are very backward and conservative. She exhorted the people to rise above caste and religious politics. She made a record by organizing more than 200 rallies and road shows that attracted huge crowds.  All that has come as cropper. She says the Congress worked as hard as it could, but failed to convert the response of the crowds into votes. But whose responsibility was that? The party did not have committed leaders and workers who could connect to people and sell its electoral promises to the voters.

 

To understand the Congress debacle, it is important to understand the reasons why the BJP is winning elections. 

First, with the welfare measures like free ration, direct cash transfer, PM’s Awas Yojna etc. the BJP managed to neutralise the anti-incumbency. These schemes are not new, they were continued by the earlier governments. But the beneficiaries of these welfare schemes were identified, and the volunteers and workers of the Sangh Parivar ensured that the beneficiaries turned up to vote for the BJP. 

 

Second, the politics of high-handedness of Adityanath, like the encounter killings of ‘criminals’, had the popular support, in that the people believed that he provided better law-and-order; no matter how high-profile cases such as Hathras, Unnao, and Lakhimpur Kheri   were handled by the state administration.

 

Third, It is beyond comprehension how the people in UP could forget the unpreceded migrant workers crisis, following the most  devastating nation-wide lockdown that rendered lakhs of people jobless and loss of livelihood; the appalling education system, the  collapse of public health system, resulting in thousands of people dying due to shortage of oxygen and  medicines during the pandemic,  dead bodies floating in Ganga and the people  unable to cremate the dead ,  the largest mortality rate in the world,  lakhs of government  jobs  lying  vacant for years, the sky rocketing prices and the stray-cattle destroying crops, making  farmers spend sleepless nights. 

  

Further, as Seema Chiishti says, “the decimation of the informal economy in UP has consequences that hurt the poorest. Youth unemployment is among the highest in the country and has grown in the past five years, with 16 lakh fewer people employed in the state in 2022 than they were in 2017.”  In spite of this grim ground reality, the people were willing to buy the false narrative, unleashed through massive publicity blitz in print and electronic media, that everything was hunky-dory under the double engine governments of Modi and Yogi.  

 

Fourth, the people have voted against their own well-being and against the larger national interest.  The people in UP said in interview on TV channels that they were simply voting for Modi and Yogi and it didn't matter who were the candidates contesting on BJP tickets. They were made to believe that ‘national security’ and hyper Hindu--nationalism were more important than the real issues.. The Ram Temple in Ayodhya and the Kashi Viswanath Temple Corridor in Varanasi were presented as the big achievements of the Modi and Yogi governments.  Hence, the Congress offer to waive the farm loans; of financial assistance of Rs.25,000/- to the families affected by the pandemic; of creating 20 lakh government jobs and of filling all the vacant posts of teachers etc. had no takers.

 

Fifth, the BJP’s campaign, led by the Prime Minister himself, has created a fear among the people, particularly the poor and marginalised, that if Akhilesh Yadav comes to power, the ‘goonda raj’ or ‘mafia raj’ of the SP would return.

 

Sixth, Prime Minister Modi has been misusing his position for electoral prospects across the length and breadth of the country. He considers winning elections more important to keep his image of a ‘strong leader’ intact, than addressing the real issues of people.  Just prior to the announcement of election, he visited UP several times to inaugurate the government projects, but converting them into political rallies, targeting the previous governments and the political rivals. And wherever he goes to address rallies or participate in road shows, the entire government machinery- the civil servants, the police, the security and para military forces, and ministers of the Centre and the State- gets involved, collecting huge crowds, to ensure his events become successful. This is making a huge difference to the electoral fortunes of BJP. There should be some mechanism to ban the use of official machinery by the Prime Minister, at least three months before elections and during election campaigns to ensure free and fair elections.

 

Seventh, the people in these five states didn’t see the Congress as viable alternative to Modi, his Hindutva brand of politics being the flavor of election seasons. He has cleverly adapted hyper Hindu-nationalism into development pitch. As Shashi Tharoor says,"Modi has unleased some forces in society that are dividing our nation on communal and religious grounds, which is introducing toxins into our social ethos." Adityanath was pursuing his campaign with a single-minded focus on Hindutva. His speeches reveal ‘100+ instances of Hate Speech, Religious Polarization, Hindutva Supremacy’. He repeatedly spoke of 'Jinnah', 'Abbajan' and '80 versus 20' to polarize the Hindus. There were bulldozers as campaign pieces placed outside his rallies. 

 

And finally, it is the Hindu majoritarianism that has forged an emotional bond between the BJP and the Hindu voters. This bond born out of Hindu-Muslim divide made them to ignore the humongous suffering and misgovernance. The real issues got trumped by the narrative of religion-driven nationalism. The securitization of communal prejudice has reached peak under Adityanath, with “more than a third of all National Security Act detentions by the UP government have been against cow smugglers...the law-and-order pitch of the BJP largely comprised converting Muslims into security threat and then making high-pitched demonstration of taming that threat”, says Asim Ali, a political researcher.  And “the BJP’s Hindu majoritarian campaign is carried out through the year, every year, through an active organization and friendly media channels.” The political pundits fail to acknowledge the main reason that “the ideological driving force behind the mandate, is Hindu majoritarianism” and that “the Hindu pollical majority that the BJP had constructed over the last three elections has now been demonstrated to be durable phenomenon. “

 

All this explains why the BJP is winning elections and Modi is rated as the most popular leader. Why voters “back a government that, by all accounts, failed miserably”? And “how did the Prime Minister, whose track record is blotted at best, continue to inspire confidence?... the Modi-era has seen an unabashed political application of it to divide people to a net ‘us’ versus ‘them’ based on religion…neo-welfarism seeks to disengage people’s rights to the basic services traditionally proved by the State, such as food-education-health …So, the electorally explosive issues of price rise and unemployment are blunted by free rations and payouts into bank accounts"(Editorial, FPJ 12/3).

 

Gandhis are failing to win the elections. The Congress central leadership is not firm and decisive, demonstrating its inability to enforce the party discipline and contain factionalism. It is unable to comprehend and provide effective mechanism to counter the Modi-Shah-Yogi- juggernaut. The party is facing the worst ever existential crisis.  In the face of these humiliating defeats, the party may split and leaders and workers, who do not have commitment to its ideology- based on the ideals of Gandhi and Nehru and the freedom movement- and patience and stomach to fight the hybrid Hindu-nationalism, may continue to desert the party. Is it a sun-set to the Nehru-Gandhi family?

 

The editorial in The Times of India (12/3) aptly sums up: “Nehru-Gandhis seem to have entirely lost their power to pull in votes. But at least some of what is left of Congress cadre still puts value on the family. That may be because if Nehru-Gandhis no longer head GOP, it may disintegrate- the family biggest contribution currently is being the glue that holds together a party prone to savage internecine battles …And even if a non-Nehru-Gandhi were to emerge and the party doesn’t implode, it is unlikely that he or she will be able to command respect or loyalty from Congress’s state leaders.  It is also important to note that the so-called G23 offers exactly no hope at all- most members of that group aren’t relevant electorally in any meaningful sense.”