Gandhis out-of-touch with Political Realities

 

Gandhis out-of-touch with Political Realities

The Indian National Congress is imploding. The Nehru-Gandhi Family, particularly Rahul Gandhi, has been a victim of a well-orchestrated campaign of calumny for too long by the ruling dispensation. The party high command has not only weakened due to the surge of the extreme Hindu-right wring party in Indian politics, but also due to the high command’s inability to foresee and preempt the crisis situations, leading to implosion from within.  More often the leadership is found clueless and caught off-guard.

 

The reasons for the down-fall of the Congress that began with the rise of Modi in 2014:

 

First, the Congress party had committed a political hara-kiri by bifurcating Andhra Pradesh in 2014 on the eve of Lok Sabha elections. The leadership was bent on dividing the state on the ill-conceived assumption that by dividing the state and creating Telangana the party would get political dividends in terms of electoral gains both in the Parliamentary and the Assembly elections in the new state. This writer, who hails from Telangana, had written nine articles (including an open letter to Rahul Gandhi), published in Andhra Jyothi, Hyderabad -a leading Telugu newspaper-opposing the bifurcation of the State and giving the reasons. Dividing the state in a great haste, by bulldozing the Parliament and undermining the legislative process, was a serious political blunder that exposed the party’s lack of political foresight and wisdom. If only the issue of bifurcation of Andhra Pradesh was left to the new government formed after the Lok Sabha elections, the course of history would have been different and the Congress would not have suffered the humiliation and crushing defeat and ignominy of losing out in both the states.

 

Sonia Gandhi was misguided. The party failed to realise that the agitation for Telangana was weakening at that time.  K. Chandrashekar Rao (KCR), the chief of the Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS), who was spearheading the agitation for separate Telangana, had assured Sonia Gandhi that after creation of Telangana his TRS would merge into the Congress and fight the elections as one entity. She failed to see the willy-nilly politician that he was. He betrayed her.  His party contested the Parliament and the Assembly elections alone after the bifurcation of the state and captured power in the new State of Telangana.  Ironically, the Congress which conceded the demand for separate Telangana and hoped to reap electoral dividends, was seen as a villain both in Telangana and Andhra Pradesh. Now the KCR family dominates both the politics and administration in Telangana. The state, particularly the cosmopolitan city of Hyderabad, is polarised on communal lines. It won’t be surprising if the BJP captures power in the state in the next elections due next year. The Congress is wiped out both in Andhra Pradesh and Telangana- once strong bastions of the party. Some of the people who misled Sonia Gandhi and advised her to divide the state and failed to read the ground reality of the state, continue to occupy important positions in the party. Incidentally, Gulam Nabi Azad was the Congress In-charge of undivided Andhra Pradesh.  The Congress never recovered from the downsizing since then.

 

Second, the party leadership is unable to preempt its elected MLAs defecting to BJP and other parties resulting in fall of its governments, as it happened in Karnataka and MP, Uttarakhand, Arunachal Pradesh and failing to form governments in spite of it emerging the single largest party in states like Goa.  Of course, the inducements of money and lure of power made the legislators to ditch the party.

 

Third, Gandhis seem to be out-of-touch with political realities. The manner in which the political developments unfolded in Punjab last year and prior to the Assembly Elections in February this year, is a classic example of a weak and dithering leadership. The crisis in Punjab that led to the electoral defeat of the Congress, was party’s own making. Navjot Singh Sidhu was openly attacking in full public view his Chief Ministers Capt. Amarinder Singh and Charanjit Singh Channi, for their alleged acts of omission and commission, and yet the party high command and the Gandhi siblings did nothing to restrain him. This had caused irreparable damage to the party’s image resulting in loss of its credibility.  Why did the leadership fail to take disciplinary action against him? It is beyond comprehension. The result is that a relatively new political party- Aam Aadmi Party- with hardly any organised political structure, captures power in Punjab by securing a massive majority of 92 seats in a House of 117 members, with the congress managing just 18 seats.

 

And lastly, the Congress High Command has mishandled the situation in Rajasthan, demonstrating yet again how it is cut off from the political reality of the state.  Having made it pubic that Ashok Gehlot would contest the post of Congress President, it shouldn’t have despatched the party observers- Ajay Maken and Mallikarjun Kharge- to hold a meeting of the CLP on 25^th September to get a one-line resolution passed authorising Sonia Gandhi to choose a new CM to replace Gehlot. What was the hurry to get such resolution passed even before Gehlot filed the nomination for Presidency?  He already announced that he would not hold two positions- that of the CM and the President. The resolution could have waited his election as the President. 

 

Moreover, the high command failed to anticipate the bitter opposition to Sachin Pilot and the angry reaction of MLAs to his replacing Gehlot as the CM. In July 2020, he along with some 18 MLAs had rebelled against Gehlot, plunging the state into a serious political crisis that brought the government to a standstill for nearly 45 days. Some 102 MLAs were lodged in hotels to avoid poaching by the BJP.  He staged a coup against his own government, perhaps influenced by Jyotiraditya Scindia's success in pulling down the Kamal Nath government in MP with the backing of BJP. It was the first time in the history of the Congress that a state President and Dy CM was trying to topple his own party government to realize his ambition. The rebels were in touch with the BJP leaders to topple the Gehlot's government. It was the political sagacity and tactical acumen of Gehlot that saved the government. The reason why some 92 MLAs boycotted the CLP meeting convened by the party central observers was the fear of a ‘traitor’ being foisted on them as their CM. It was their legitimate claim that if someone has to be chosen by the party high command to replace Gehlot as the CM, he should be from among the legislators who saved the Gehlot government two years ago, and not the one who brought the government to the brink of collapse. Why no show- cause notice was served on Sachin Pilot for attempting to overthrow the government in collusion with the BJP? Like Sidhu, who enjoyed immunity from any disciplinary action, Pilot too was protected by the high command. Both Sidhu and Pilot were shielded at the expense of the party. It is a wrong perception that these young leaders are considered the future of the party. What happened to the young family loyalists-Scindias, Prasadas, Singhs and the like-who betrayed the leadership and joined the rival parties in search of greener pastures. This is where the Gandhis are failing to distinguish between true party loyalists committed to its ideology and opportunists seeking power.

 

It is understandable why the congress high command is jittery, after what had happed in Rajasthan.  It was for the first time that its ‘diktat ’is being questioned and challenged. The high command culture is prevalent in all political parties, otherwise they may not survive.   What happened in Rajasthan should make the high command to introspect and do the course correction. Just simply imposing its ‘diktat’ without understanding the reality and appreciating the feelings of the elected legislators is not a right thing.  After Gehlot met Soia Gandhi and apologized to her for the episode, the matter should have rested there. He should have filed the nomination for the president post, as announced earlier. And a successor to him could have been chosen, in case he got elected, from among those MLAs who saved his government in 2020, as per their wish.