Having made clear that he’s not interested in being Prime Minister, the Congress vice-president says he is focussed on re-building his party. Yet, he remains blissfully unaware of how the Congress functions and this is exactly why his grand plans for the party won’t materialize
Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi’s statement to media on March 5 that he did not wish to be Prime Minister deserves close scrutiny. The two-time member of the lok Sabha has rarely said anything noteworthy and has not been known to share with the public his ideas on any issue of national importance. Of course, none of this prevented other Congress leaders from making clear that ‘Rahul is our leader’ especially after media reported on Mr Gandhi’s lack of prime ministerial ambitions in 2014.
Still, the fact remains that for now Mr Gandhi has given priority to his party. He has said that he wants to energise middle level leaders to strengthen the party organisation, empower the 720 odd MPs and the 5,000 legislators in various States. This is as it should be because if a party believes in inner democracy, every member of the party should actively participate in decision-making processes.
The question is: Will Mr Gandhi succeed in changing the ‘high-command’ culture of the CongressIJ For now, Mr Gandhi’s tall claims of democratisation sound hollow given how the Punjab Pradesh Congress Committee president (himself a high command choice) was replaced on March 7 by yet another nominee of 10 Janpath without even being supposedly consulted in the process. And that is not all. The so-called young Congress leaders in the present lok Sabha that Mr Gandhi wishes to support are all political heirs themselves who have merely inherited the position occupied by their family members. Clearly, Mr Gandhi’s plan to empower MPs and MlAs so that they have a stake in the electoral success of the party is wishful thinking.
But even if Mr Gandhi can be excused for his superficial understanding of Indian politics, he must learn from his mother, party president Sonia Gandhi’s, struggle to reach the top of the Congress leadership. Ms Gandhi took charge in 1998 and the party’s electoral debacle under her watch led to great disenchantment. She was accepted as the undisputed leader only when she formed the first Congress-led coalition Government at the centre in 2004. But between 1998 and 2004, she was just a rallying point within the Congress.
But it seems like Mr Gandhi is a slow learner or else he would have drawn important lessons from the Haryana Congress meeting where he witnessed conflict between Chief Minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda and MPs from the State. The point here is that the Congress is fighting against powerful political forces such as those represented by the BJP in Gujarat and regional parties in several large States. Yet, there is no ideological commitment which unites all Congressmen leading to factional fights within the party.
Mr Gandhi introduced elections within the National Youth Congress but abandoned the exercise soon after as elections sharpened organisational cleavages. Also, before being anointed party vice-president, Mr Gandhi had been party general secretary for a long time. Yet, he had not organised elections within the party and PCC presidents have been replaced at will by the central leadership.
Such centralisation of power in the hands of the ‘Supreme leader’ has created a culture of sycophancy. This has adversely impacted the party. For instance, the Congress never announces the chief ministerial candidate before any State Assembly election because any candidate who is nominated faces electoral sabotage by his own party leaders. The inexperienced Mr Gandhi had announced Mr Amarinder Singh as the Congress’s candidate for chief ministership in Punjab, and the result was for everyone to see. Mr Gandhi is just shining in his mother’s glory and all his goals will remain on paper only as he does not understand Congress-style politics.