Gandhi family's dilemmas weakening party and delaying Opposition unity

The woes of the Congress party arise primarily not from its electoral failures but from the political confusion of its first family. Unless the Gandhis sort out their political priorities, the party will not be able to move forward.

Sonia Gandhi and her son disagree over whether a Gandhi is necessary to lead the party. Rahul Gandhi would like to position himself as the moral voice of the party rather than its president. However, his mother and the current interim president of the party seems to think that the party could disintegrate without a Gandhi leading it.

So far, Sonia Gandhi has resisted calls from within the party to consider giving control of the party to her daughter, Priyanka Gandhi. Sonia Gandhi, is herself, a beneficiary of the gender-egalitarianism of the Congress and is therefore unlikely to rule out her daughter peremptorily. But, for now, Priyanka Gandhi has been limited to Uttar Pradesh and outsiders have been ruled out for the job. Sonia Gandhi still hopes that the son can be persuaded. As long as this issue remains unresolved, the party will remain rudderless.

The second contradiction that the Gandhis need to resolve is between extending personal patronage and following due process to manage factionalism at the regional level. While swearing by institutional processes, personal interventions continue to be relied on to soothe disgruntled party men. This, however, means that sometimes the promises made in a crisis become difficult to honour as the ground situation evolves.

This is most evident in Punjab, where the Gandhis seem keen to please a capricious Navjot Singh Sidhu even if that means weakening its only mass leader in the state, Chief Minister Captain Amarinder Singh. The chief minister who ought to be mustering forces for the electoral battle one year from now, is busy answering party committees. It is believed that Sidhu’s assertiveness was encouraged by promises made by one of the Gandhi siblings that he would be the Congress’ next chief ministerial candidate.

Although Amarinder Singh had declared that the 2017 election would be his last, he has changed his mind now as he finds himself on a stronger wicket. He is raring to lead the party to another victory and is fully aware that hardly any legislator would want to go the next Assembly poll under Sidhu’s leadership. Rahul Gandhi’s refusal to meet him in Delhi could be seen as a snub especially as he met Sidhu, reportedly under pressure from his sister. Sidhu, a political maverick, is now trying to trade unfulfilled promises for the position of state party president.

In Rajasthan, Ashok Gehlot was appointed chief minister after following the due process of consultation with the legislators. Yet, the Gandhi siblings have continually intervened to assuage the challenger, Sachin Pilot, because of their personal friendship. After a failed attempt to break the party, Pilot is, again and again, offered a “compromise”. The latest one promised that seven legislators loyal to him would be made ministers and two supporters from the Congress youth and student wings in the state would get positions in the central party structure. However, Chief Minister Gehlot has only offered to accommodate three of Pilot’s nominees. Nobody can be sure that the Gandhis will not destabilise the government in Rajasthan for a personal favourite.

Jyotiraditya Scindia has already proved the pointlessness of letting personal commitments get in the way of purely political considerations. Scindia eventually brought down the party’s government in Madhya Pradesh by leading defections to the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).

In Chhattisgarh, the process was overruled by the Congress high command when it disregarded the candidature of T S Singh Deo despite the support of a majority of legislators after the 2018 state election. Bhupesh Baghel was appointed Chief Minister instead while the Gandhis assured Singh Deo that he would get to share the chief ministership halfway through the 5-year term. Today, it is clear that the Gandhis may not be able to force power-sharing. Dangling such carrots to manage an immediate crisis is patently a bad idea because political and power equations are dynamic.

Yet another dilemma that Rahul Gandhi faces is his possible role in building an alliance of Opposition parties. He is not averse to an anti-BJP formation but appears reluctant to take the initiative himself. His concerns about associating himself with ongoing efforts to shape such a platform may arise from the fact that with the exception of the Left and a few regional parties, most of the Opposition has not hesitated to sup with the BJP in the past. This is especially because he identifies the coming battle for the soul of India as one that will have to confront the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) and its Hindutva ideology.

The key potential architects of an anti-BJP platform for 2024 are likely to be Mamata Banerjee, Sharad Pawar, Y S Jaganmohan Reddy and Uddhav Thackeray. They seem convinced that an Opposition platform should include the Congress. But with Rahul taking a backseat, whom do they talk to in the party?

Meanwhile, Rahul Gandhi has to recognise the truth that RSS has used state institutions to expand its ideological reach under this regime. It has proliferated through appointments to universities and the judiciary, by commandeering statutory bodies to change school and college syllabi and misusing institutions that fund academia. To counter the RSS he will have to grasp the thorny nettle of political alliances for an electoral victory to dislodge a regime that has given so much access to the RSS. If this means building alliances with those who may have aligned with the BJP earlier, then so be it, provided they do not subscribe to its divisive ideology. He will have to bring tactics in line with the strategic political goals of the party.

If the internal dilemmas and confusions of the Gandhi family are not resolved, the Congress could well see departures from its ranks after the 2024 general elections to ideologically close parties such as the Trinamool Congress, the Nationalist Congress Party and YSR Congress. Where this is not a feasible option, Congressmen may even launch other regional parties.