Despite suffering major defeats, not only in the 2014 lok Sabha election, but also in the 2016 Kerala Assembly polls, it is diassapointing that the approach of the Congress high command is as if it will not improve, come what may. The party needs a strong leader
Despite suffering a major defeat in the 2014 lok Sabha election, the national leadership of the Congress is continuing to prove that it has not learnt any lessons from past experiences. P Chidambaram, the Congress’s most prominent leader from Tamil Nadu, withdrew from contesting the 2014 lok Sabha polls and made his son Karti Chidambaram a candidate who faced defeat. The Congress did not even win a single seat in Tamil Nadu.
When P Chidambaram was the Finance Minister in the UPA II Government, allegations about corruption involving several crores of rupees surfaced against him. A man with no roots in his own State, P Chidambaram, was made a Rajya Sabha member from Maharashtra, despite stiff objections from the party. As per reports, the Congress is planning to make him its leader in the Rajya Sabha. What is the Congress high command planning to achieve by bringing P Chidambaram, who could not even strengthen the party in his own State, into the Rajya SabhaIJ
Does the Congress leadership have a practical plan to effectively face the challenges posed by the BJPIJ The BJP is a party with a strong cadre base while the Congress still remains a mass organisation. It is yet to be seen whether the high command has a plan to transform the Congress into a cadre-based party with enough strength to take on the BJP.
There has been no general body meeting of the All India Congress Committee for the past several months. It is also not certain whether serious discussions are taking place in the Congress Working Committee as to how to strengthen the party. Most Congress leaders are speaking about how the party made a come back in 1980, like a phoenix, after losing in 1977. What they do not remember is the fact that it was possible only due to the charismatic leadership of Indira Gandhi. Does the grand old party have a leader like India Gandhi who can communicate with the peopleIJ
While on the one hand, in the 2009 lok Sabha polls, the BJP could get only 116 seats and the Congress bagged 206 seats. On the other hand, in the 2014 election, the Congress managed only 44 seats and the BJP bagged 282 seats. The Congress could not even become the principal opposition party in the lok Sabha. The BJP’s campaign was heavily based on the corruption committed by the Ministers of the Congress and its allies in UPA II, to the tune of Rs 2,10,068 crore.
Just like the 2014 lok Sabha election, in which people had thrown the UPA out of power, the 2016 Assembly election in Kerala saw the people rejecting the Congress-led United Democratic Front (UDF) Government. Allegations of corruption and immorality were leveled against several Ministers, including the Chief Minister, the Home Minister of the UDF regime. They became subjects of heated debates. The fall of the UDF Government was made intense by the alleged corrupt decisions taken by its Cabinet just before the announcement of the schedule for the election.
The situation worsened further by the decision taken by the then Cabinet to butcher the Right to Information Act in order to bury allegations. Other reasons that worsened the UDF’s defeat were the survival-based groupism played under the leadership of top Congress leaders like Oommen Chandy and Ramesh Chennithala. They carried unhealthy activities in the name of factions and allocation of tickets in polls on group basis. Corruption became rampant even at the district and lower levels, reminding one of the saying, ‘Yatha Raja Tatha Praja’ (As the King, so the people). Traditional votes that had leaked from the kitty of the Congress had gone to the BJP-led NDA and the Communist Party of India (Marxist) CPI(M)-headed left Democratic Front (lDF).
One wonders whether the decisions taken by the Congress high command, with regards to the organisational matters in Kerala, were really intended to strengthen the partyIJ When the Congress faced the Kerala Assembly polls of 2001, under the leadership of Congress leader AK Antony and the then Pradesh Congress Committee (PCC) president Thennala Balakrishna Pillai, the party won 61 out of the total 140 seats.
Antony became the Chief Minister, but had to resign in 2004 due to plots formulated by those who were craving for his post. In 2004, Chandy became the Chief Minister and Chennithala took the position of the Kerala PCC chief.
In the 2006 election, the Congress could get only 24 seats and the UDF became the opposition party. Chandy became the Opposition leader and Chennithala continued as the PCC president. The UDF continued as an inert Opposition for five years. The Congress and the UDF faced the Assembly election in 2011 under their leadership and the party won only 38 seats. Though the UDF could come to power, but strangely, the CPI(M), with 45 seats, became the single largest party in the Assembly.
It should be noted that the 2011 election was held when the divisionist battle in the CPI(M), between two of its tallest leaders, Achuthanandan and Pinarayi Vijayan, was at its peak. The CPI(M)-led lDF had lost the Kottayam, Piravam and Azheekode seats by thin margins.
If there were no group problems in the CPI(M), the lDF could have retained power by winning those three seats. In 2014, Chennithala resigned as the PCC president and became the Home minister in the then Chandy Cabinet. Senior leader VM Sudheeran assumed office of the State Congress president. Two absolutely unhealthy groups had come into being in the Kerala Congress under the leadership of Chandy and Chennithala since 2004. Factions had existed in the Kerala Congress even before, but leaders, Antony and former Chief Minister K Karunakaran, had always held fast to the pro-people politics.
For this year’s Assembly election in Kerala, the two group leaders competed against each other for giving seats to their loyalists. State Congress chief Sudheeran had no big role in the selection of candidates. And the resultIJ The Congress could win only 22 seats. The responsibility for the shrinkage of the number of Congress’s Assembly seats from 61 in 2001 under Antony’s leadership to mere 22 in the last election rests solely on the shoulders of these two faction leaders.
After the May election, Chandy refused to take up the position of the Opposition leader. Several leaders had advised the Congress high command against making Chennithala the Opposition leader. The author of this piece too had written to Congress president Sonia Gandhi and Congress vice president Rahul Gandhi, requesting them not to give the post to either of these two leaders. But the Congress high command did not lend ear to these advices and requests.
It is with immense disappointment that one has to state that the approach of the Congress high command even after all these devastating experiences is that it would not improve, come what may.
(The writer is a senior Congress leader and former Kerala Minister)