Congress needs a president and drastic spring cleaning of party structure

Forget finding a president with pan-India appeal, soon the party may not even have state level leaders of any consequence

It is difficult to take the suggestion of Punjab Chief Minister Amrinder Singh seriously that the party should give a free hand to its regional leaders. Strong state leaders and weak central leadership can never be good for a national party. 

Arguing for the autonomy of regional leaders, Singh said in a newspaper article : “We have seen this happen in Punjab, where the party leadership trusted me, and gave me a free hand, to win not just the 2017 Assembly polls with a resounding margin, but every small and big election thereafter, including the recently concluded Lok Sabha elections.” This seems to suggest that while state leaders can bring in votes and resources, the contribution of the central leadership is marginal. 

Perhaps the Punjab chief minister exaggerates the benefits of a “free hand”. It is noteworthy that for 10 years after he demitted office in 2007, he could not defeat the Badals. The Congress won the state assembly elections only in March 2017 when a very high anti-incumbency had built up against the Prakash Singh Badal led Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) government. It was also due to the traditional Congress vote in the state.

Singh’s individual magic was not enough for the success of the Shiromani Akali Dal (Panthic) party he set up in 1992 and where he presumably had a free hand. It was after the crushing defeat of his party in the state elections and after he himself had received a meagre 856 votes in his constituency, that he decided to wind up shop and join the Congress in 1998. It is doubtful if he would be able to take on the Akalis even if he were to go it alone now.

To survive as a national party, the Congress needs a strong leadership both at the centre and in the regions. Should the central leadership lose control, which is a possibility after Rahul Gandhi’s resignation, the regional leaders could try to run their own versions of the Congress.

The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) faced a similar situation after electoral defeat in 2009. L K Advani’s leadership had failed in two successive general elections. Nitin Gadkari then held the ship of the party for a record five years but in that period regional BJP leaders became virtually independent centres of power – Narendra Modi in Gujarat, Shivraj Singh Chouhan in Madhya Pradesh, Raman Singh in Chattisgarh, Prem Kumar Dhumal in Himachal Pradesh and B S Yeddiyurappa in Karnataka. The presence of a pool of able regional leaders allowed a strong central leader, Narendra Modi, to emerge from among them. 

The Congress does not have a comparable pool of regional leaders. Its central leadership has traditionally not allowed regional leaders to grow. How Jawaharlal Nehru cut to size Purushottam Das Tandon and B C Roy is legendry. The problem became more acute after the party turned fully dynastic under Indira Gandhi. She deliberately de-institutionalised the Congress, to first remove potential challengers to her leadership and then to promote her sons. 

Sonia Gandhi’s suspicion of regional leaders, was shaped by her experience with P V Narasimha Rao who in her perception was trying to marginalise the Nehru-Gandhi family’s influence over the party. Her mistrust of regional leaders continued even after election of 2004 when Congress could led a coalition government. She chose Manmohan Singh, with no mass base, as prime minister over stalwarts like Arjun Singh and Pranab Mukherjee.

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Consequently, in the 19 years of Sonia Gandhi’s presidency, regional leaders were not allowed to grow and new ones not groomed. The “next-gen” leaders projected by the media like Jyotiraditya Scindia, Sachin Pilot or Jiten Prasada, were not leaders with an independent base. They were there because of their pedigree which gave them both a public image and resources. Even their ambitions were thwarted. The few who were eventually included in the council of ministers, complained of being given no work by their seniors.

Sonia Gandhi’s efforts at promoting a generational change of leadership was confined to her children alone. Now that Rahul Gandhi has all but bolted, the old guard is back with a vengeance. Ghulam Nabi Azad who was P V Narasimha Rao’s trouble shooter, post-mortem experts like A K Anthony, Ahmed Patel who has virtually become part of the furniture of the Congress Office and Motilal Vohra who can barely walk, are in control. 

Not only was the Congress unable to renew its leadership, it also lost its core support base. In Indira Gandhi’s time the party claimed that it stood for dalits, minorities and the backward, (“Dalit, alpa-sankhyak aur pichda varg). However its leadership remained largely upper caste. After the implementation of the Mandal Commission’s recommendations in 1990, the Hindi heartland saw consolidation of OBC (Other Backward Classes) politics behind independent caste based parties. 

Muslims and Dalits both sought their future with the OBC parties. Narasimha Rao’s complicity in the Babri Masjid demolition, cost the Congress its Muslim vote. Dalits who first organised under the new leadership of Kanshi Ram in the early 1980s, tasted power for the first time in 1993 when the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) formed a government in alliance with the Samajwadi Party (SP).

In effect, through the 1990s, all the three segments of the Congress’ core support base – dalits, minorities and backwards -- had deserted it. The upper castes stayed with the Congress only so long as they enjoyed power but began abandoning ship once they thought it was sinking. Briefly the Brahmins went to the BSP and the Thakurs to the SP. However, with the BJP’s ascendency, the upper castes moved laterally in search of power once again.

The multiple crises that the Congress is facing, therefore, are not easy to resolve. Forget finding a president with pan-India appeal, soon it may not even have state level leaders of any consequence. Its only hope is that about 12 crore voters are still with it. The party needs to design strategies to expand this base and ensure that a new leadership emerges from below. Before that, however, drastic spring cleaning of the party structure is required.

Twitter: @Bharatitis