Congress squabbling as bad as its Delhi debacle
What can be worse for the Congress than the rout it has faced in the Delhi Assembly electionIJ It's the infighting that has broken out in the open between senior party leaders, because that seriously hampers moves to take corrective measures. It also demonstrates that all was not well with the party even as it went into an election which was a do-or-die battle for it. Former Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit and the party's face in the election Ajay Maken have been taking pot-shots at each other over the colossal defeat, leading Congress president Sonia Gandhi to intervene with a directive that senior leaders must quit squabbling in the public.
Whether her command bears fruit, remains to be seen. But the issues that the warring leaders have raised will not go away. Ms Dikshit slammed Mr Maken for a campaign that had no bite, no strategy and no connect with the people. She also lamented that he had not engaged her services in electioneering despite the fact that she had headed a Congress Government in the State for close to 15 years, winning no less than three elections in a row. She expressed a sense of "pity" for Mr Maken. On his part, Mr Maken virtually laid the defeat at the former Chief Minister's doors, claiming that blunders during her rule had brought the present humiliation upon the party.
He caustically remarked that on occasions when he approached the people with assurances, he was asked why the Congress regime under Ms Dikshit had failed in 15 years to meet those very promises that had been earlier given. Given that Mr Maken had been handpicked by party vice president Rahul Gandhi, and also given that Ms Dikshit is no longer a major political player in Delhi, it is not surprising that the Congress has jumped to Mr Maken's defence. Senior leader and Delhi in-charge PC Chacko seems to have largely echoed Mr Maken's line, if one goes by his recent remarks.
It is true that the unpopularity of and the anti-incumbency against Ms Dikshit's 15-year old regime had led to a disastrous showing of the Congress in the 2013 Assembly, when the party slumped to just eight seats. This time, however, the same factors could not have played out again, and that too, to the extent that the Congress got wiped out completely, winning not a single seat. There had to be fresh reasons that neither the party nor its leaders can shy away from. The first is that, since the 2013 defeat, the Congress had failed to re-connect with the people.
The result was that even its committed voters shifted to the Aam Aadmi Party. The second is that the campaign strategy with Mr Maken as the face of the party, miserably failed, and to that extent Mr Maken has to take the blame. And the third reason is that the party went into the fight in a state of fatalism — having already accepted defeat. It will be a Heruclean task for the party to emerge out of the crisis. But there is no indication of a robust beginning to this endeavour.