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Congress party's winter may last longer with disorder in the organisation

The infighting in the party's state units has not settled down ever since it lost the 2014 general election

Congress leader Rahul Gandhi listens to a party worker during his visit to Amethi on Wednesday | Photo: PTI
File picture of Congress leader Rahul Gandhi listening to a party worker in Amethi | Photo: PTI
Archis MohanAnkur Bhardwaj New Delhi
7 min read Last Updated : Sep 11 2019 | 2:15 PM IST
Insiders have taken to call it a battle of attrition between ‘Team Rahul Gandhi’ and the Congress veterans.

Sonia Gandhi may have completed a month as the interim president of the Grand Old Party on Tuesday, but in the last 30 days, her son and his team have vetoed key decisions his mother and her associates among the party veterans have sought to take.

‘Team Rahul’ has also, on more than one occasion, queered the pitch for his mother as she has tried to pull the party from its bootstraps for the forthcoming Assembly polls in Maharashtra, Jharkhand and Haryana, resolve the infighting in Madhya Pradesh and invigorate the state governments the party runs in Chhattisgarh, Rajasthan and MP.

According to party sources, Rahul continues to blame the veterans for the current state of the Congress, and believes a new reformed Congress can only rise once reduced to ashes. This, for all practical purposes, would mean that the party, as it is most likely to in any case, will lose the forthcoming Assembly polls, and all other elections slated for the next couple of years. The veterans have continued their fightback, but with mixed results.

Insiders say the party has now broken into clear factions, with party chief Sonia Gandhi and her daughter Priyanka Gandhi Vadra, the general secretary in-charge for Uttar Pradesh, disagreeing with Rahul's approach.
They believe the seniors play an important role, for example, in raising funds that have kept the party’s wheels turning. However, they do not want such differences to spill out in the open. This has meant Rahul and his team have had their way on several occasions during the past 30 days.

An example of this was the demotion of data analytics department chief Praveen Chakravarty. There were those in the party who wanted him sacked, but his proximity to Rahul meant that the department would continue to function, but would be reduced to a ‘cell’ with Chakravarty still heading it.

Palace intrigue is at a peak with the Congress in the midst of selecting a successor to Divya Spandana to head the party’s social media department. Members of Rahul Gandhi’s core team are vying for the post against some others who aren't part of his inner circle.

Haryana, Maharashtra, Jharkhand and Delhi are the states that go to polls within the next one year. We take a look at the party's organisational challenges in these domains.

Haryana

Haryana was one state where Sonia Gandhi, aided by her advisors Ghulam Nabi Azad and Ahmed Patel, ignored the advice of her son and his team. She decided to replace state unit chief Ashok Tanwar, who is close to Rahul Gandhi, with Kumari Selja after Bhupinder Singh Hooda threatened to quit the party. In a rare event, Hooda even publicly disagreed with his party's stand on the Modi government's move to weaken Article 370.

Partymen argue that the slide in Haryana happened because state leadership issues were allowed to fester for more than five years. They point to the string of poor results in the state since 2014. Demands for change in leadership have long been raised, but the situation mirrored Punjab's confusion before 2015. But while in Punjab, Amarinder Singh had 15 months to prepare for polls, the Haryana unit now has only three to try and turn things around.

Even now, news reports suggest Tanwar may not have accepted the change in state leadership and the lack of party unity may continue for some more time.

Maharashtra

On Tuesday, former Maharashtra minister and Congress leader Kripashankar Singh quit the party. In the run-up to the Lok Sabha polls and subsequently, several Congress leaders as those of its ally, the Nationalist Congress Party, have made a beeline either for the Bharatiya Janata Party or the Shiv Sena.

In July this year, Congress Legislature Party leader and leader of the opposition in the state assembly, Radhakrishna Vikhe Patil, quit and joined the BJP. Then a battle ensued between two senior state leaders to replace him and the party had to placate them with one position each. This just highlighted the state of affairs in the party's state unit and despite the crushing loss in the Lok Sabha polls earlier, the situation has not improved for the the party to emerge as a serious contender.

Jharkhand

There are recriminations in the party after the loss in the Lok Sabha polls. Ajoy Kumar, who quit as party chief in August, insinuated that the loss was because of infighting within the party. In a letter to the party leadership, he blamed Rameshwar Oraon and Subhodh Kant Sahay. Oraon’s appointment as party chief has not enthused workers. He is 72 years old and quite unwell.

Delhi

With the passing away of Sheila Dikshit and Assembly polls due in February, the Congress faces the question of now who. Should it return to former party chief Ajay Maken? Or should it entrust the job to Dikshit’s son Sandeep, or to one of the older guards, like Subhash Chopra? 

Maken quit as Delhi party chief in early 2019 due to health issues. Now, the party’s Delhi in-charge P C Chacko has also quit. Chacko had favoured an alliance with the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) for the 2019 Lok Sabha polls.

The alliance could not come about, but the Congress regained some vote share in Delhi at AAP's expense. However, with assembly elections due next year and party unit in confusion, it looks as if the Congress would end up surrendering its vote share to AAP.

The situation is not very different for the party even in states where it won important polls in 2018.

Madhya Pradesh

The meeting between Congress leader Jyotiraditya Scindia and Sonia Gandhi could not take place on Tuesday. Scindia wants to be the Madhya Pradesh state unit chief. The veterans in the state, Chief Minister Kamal Nath and senior leader Digvijaya Singh, are unlikely to accede to that.

It is important to note that Scindia is also close to Rahul Gandhi, as are some other younger leaders who are now reportedly unhappy.

Chhattisgarh

In Chhattisgarh and other Congress run states, Sonia Gandhi wanted the governments there to start implementing some of the promises the Congress had made in its 2019 Lok Sabha manifesto, particularly the minimum income guarantee, or NYAY. Initial discussions took place in Chhattisgarh, but were eventually nixed.

The party's loss in the Punjab assembly polls in 2012 was blamed on factionalism, and the general rudderlessness continued for some more time as it lost space to AAP in the state (AAP won four seats in Lok Sabha polls in 2014). With AAP running as favourites to win the 2017 assembly elections, the Congress leadership in Delhi finally relented and gave the charge to former CM, Amarinder Singh. The change happened in November 2015, and in the next 15 months the party ran a spirited campaign and won a landslide victory, thwarting the AAP challenge.

The reason the Punjab Congress story is important is because it was symptomatic of the situation various state units of the party find themselves in; that is, a lack of organisational cohesion, the absence of purpose and rampant factionalism, often encouraged from Delhi. Punjab also demonstrated that if the right action is taken at the right time, even hopeless situations can be turned around. The states of Maharashtra, Haryana and Jharkhand go to polls later this year, while Delhi voters will exercise their franchise early next year to elect new assemblies. In all of these states, the party is unable to put an end to internal squabbles as leaders associated with former or the interim presidents continue to vie for control. Observers point out that ever since the party was defeated in the 2014 elections, it has been unable to set its own house in order. With the squabbles continuing, the Congress party's long winter may just have got longer.

Topics :Rahul GandhiCongress crisis