Sonia or Rahul Gandhi - Who's running the Congress?

Kamal Nath has been named as chief minister of Madhya Pradesh (MP) and Ashok Gehlot as the chief minister of Rajasthan. By whom? By its President, the 48-year old Rahul Gandhi. 

And if you believe that, you will believe anything.

Look at the facts. Mr Nath, well-heeled though he might be, has never served in the state. He is also not, quite emphatically, a man of the people. Instead he has always been a central minister and a very cosmopolitan one at that. In his case, the term parachuted in readily springs to mind.

Jyotiraditya Scindia is identical. But he is without the advantages that Mr Nath enjoys.

As to Mr Gehlot, he has always been a state level politician but one who has lost his sheen. But he knows the state as only a two-term chief minister can. Mr Nath does not have that attribute. 

Meanwhile, it is Sachin Pilot who navigated the Congress to a win in the state. Unlike Mr Scindia, however, he chose to repair to Jaipur in 2014. Mr Scindia chose to remain in Delhi, in the Court of St Gandhi.

And now look at the amazing thing: neither the hard work nor the courtier were rewarded. Instead, the old timers were. 

The word was that Mr Gandhi would have preferred the younger men. But the word now is that he was told to pipe down. One can only guess who has the authority to do so. 

And the correct guess would be Ms Sonia Gandhi, who, like Emperor Augustus’s grandmother, still takes all the decisions that really matter. An over-riding consideration this time would have been the party’s need to tap well-wishers for funds for the forthcoming 2019 general election. 

Who better that two old hands for this? But this could turn out to be a major error of judgement because the implications of these two appointments for Mr Gandhi’s control over the party apparatus cannot be understated. 

Bluntly put it, he doesn’t matter when the big boys play. He is like the Indian cricket captain who had to lead a team chosen by the Board of Cricket Control in India (BCCI).

Hobbled from the start

The first indication of whether I am wrong about this will come when the time comes to distribute tickets for the general election next year. It is almost certain now that neither Mr Pilot nor Mr Scindia will have say in the matter.

Messrs Nath and Gehlot will make sure that tickets for all 54 seats – 29 in MP and 25 in Rajasthan – are given to their supporters. And if this doesn’t lead to non-cooperation by Messrs Pilot and Scindia, what will?

The argument used by the two chief ministers will be ‘winnability’. But for that to be proved correct both Mr Pilot and Mr Scindia will have to become ascetic in their approach to politics.

Can you see that happening?

In the next few months this is going to leave Mr Gandhi in the terrible position of having to constantly pour oil on troubled waters, rather as Mr Mohan Bhagwat had to just before the assembly elections. He had to exert himself to bring the quarrelling within the BJP under some sort of control. It was to no avail, especially in Rajasthan. He had left it too late.

Implications for 2019

The general expectations today is that the BJP could lose more than half the seats it had won in these two states in 2014 which was 52 out of 54. The Congress can hope to go from 2/54 to 30/54.

But this will be possible only if Mr Gandhi is able to prevent infighting amongst the Gehlot-Pilot and Nath-Scindia factions. This is what makes Mr Gandhi’s job so very hard, all that talk about United Colours notwithstanding.

Given how fickle the Indian politician is, especially at the state level, the BJP is bound to exploit this weakness. It knows it cannot repeat the extraordinary performance of 2014 but it will certainly aim to contain its losses to around 20 seats in 2019. 

The decision to reward Mr Nath and Mr Gehlot instead of Mr Pilot and Mr Scindia will come in very handy for this. It will keep asking who really controls the Congress: mother or son.