Presidential crisis in Congress continues. The question is, for how long?

“We accept the verdict. We are disappointed with our performance in Bihar. The Congress Working Committee (CWC) will review it in due course and come up with an official statement of our position…I think, 10 seats either this way or that would have changed the government,” said former finance minister P Chidambaram at a press conference, analysing the Bihar election verdict, where the Congress contested 70 seats, won 19 and dragged the Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) down with it, denying Tejashwi Yadav the chance to form the government.
 

A member of the G23 — so-called because earlier this year, a group of 23 leaders of the Congress wrote a letter to the high command seeking a full-time president — was unimpressed by this frankness. “There was no review (of the electoral defeat of the party) in 2014, none in 2019 and none after all the other elections we’ve lost. Why should anything be different this time around?”
 

In Bihar, the party has never come as close to victory as it did this time. “The All India Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen (AIMIM) won five seats. It would have needed very little persuasion to support us to keep the BJP out. Just a little more hard work…” he said regretfully.
 

So is this going to be the story of the Congress? Eternal regret?
 

Demand on the G23
 

When the G23 wrote to Sonia Gandhi in August seeking an active and ‘full-time’ Congress president, they were not, they say, questioning the legitimacy or the right of the Gandhi family to leadership. “The intention is to make Congress active and strong. But those who got ‘appointment cards’ continue to oppose our proposal. What’s the harm in having elected CWC members who will have fixed tenures in the party,” asked former Jammu and Kashmir chief minister Ghulam Nabi Azad, one of the signatories to the letter.
 

The response from the leadership was one of outrage. “CWC makes it clear that no one will be or can be permitted to undermine or weaken the party and its leadership at this juncture,” said the resolution. But the CWC is also said to have resolved that elections would be held within six months. “In fact, Rahul and Sonia Gandhi said let’s do the election within a month but we said it’s not possible. So it’s our victory that after six months we will have a full-time president,” said Azad.

Halfway into the six-month period, there is no sign of any planning for an All India Congress Committee session anytime soon, let alone elections.
 

Selection of members
 

“In assembly elections, you cannot let outsiders take over the script. It is local leaders who know the terrain best. They must be given the freedom to decide candidates and campaign. In Bihar, there was little evidence of local leadership,” said a member of the G23.
 

Congress General Secretary Randeep Surjewala, who belongs to Haryana, was given the key charge of managing the elections. Mohan Prakash, the convenor, belongs to Uttar Pradesh. Congress leader from Bihar and former minister Shakeel-uz-Zaman Ansari was made a member. But after the result, he said: “We had told the screening committee Chairman Avinash Pandey to give tickets to right candidates, but he did not pay heed.” Pandey is from UP but his area of politics has been Maharashtra. The Congress believed it had done some tough negotiation and had managed to wrest 70 seats. But were at least 20 out of the 70 seats, where the Congress has been unable to win for the past several decades — like Nalanda, Vaishali, and Muzaffarpur. Besides, the party posted a huge slide in areas of Seemanchal, where it used to have a big presence. Instead, AIMIM stole the march in Muslim-dominated areas.
 

The G23 is dispirited and depressed. With Ghulam Nabi Azad’s retirement from the Rajya Sabha in February 2021 and the gradual recast of party bodies, the ‘rebellion’ will be stillborn, as the next round of elections to West Bengal, Assam, and Tamil Nadu trundle round. The high command will have to decide where it wants the party to go, say the leaders.