In the recent State elections Rahul Gandhi’s interventions were quixotic, embarrassing and politically irrelevant. Ashok Malik explains what this means for the Congress as the 2014 election approaches
In the weeks following the Congress’ drubbing in elections in four northern Indian States, results of which were declared on December 8, something strange has occurred. Rahul Gandhi, the party’s vice-president and heir apparent, has become more visible; paradoxically, he has also become less powerful. As such, while he may be declared the Congress’ prime ministerial candidate — or at least the face of its election campaign — on January 17, 2014, when a party conclave takes place in Delhi, he will do so as much less of his own man.
How does one explain this seeming contradictionIJ To understand it one has to go back to the Congress lok Sabha victory of 2009, when it won 206 seats, the party’s best performance since 1991. This was widely interpreted as the start of a new era of Congress ascendancy. Rahul’s relative youth, especially when contrasted with the BJP’s ageing and divided leadership, was seen as giving him an advantage. The Congress, it was felt, was resurgent in northern India.
The first major test the Congress faced in the north after that 2009 election was the Bihar Assembly contest of 2010. Two years later came the Assembly elections in Uttar Pradesh. Earlier this winter there were the State elections in Rajasthan, Delhi, Chhattisgarh and Maharashtra. In all of these States, Rahul had a critical role. He micromanaged the selection of candidates and decided party positioning. He campaigned personally and addressed the public directly, selling them his vision, such as it is.
In Bihar and Uttar Pradesh, he rejected the idea of seeking an alliance, ignoring those in the Congress who wanted to join hands with lalu Prasad Yadav in 2010 and Mulayam Singh Yadav in 2012. Mulayam’s Samajwadi Party eventually swept the Uttar Pradesh election and didn’t need a junior partner. Even so, if the Congress had approached it for an alliance in the aftermath of the 2009 lok Sabha election — when Muslims, among others, were looking to the Congress and Rahul seemed to be making an impact in the state — the SP may well have agreed.
In the recent state elections, Rahul’s interventions were quixotic, embarrassing and frankly irrelevant. His campaign was woeful. Crowds were thin, response was mixed to downright poor. His speeches were all over the place, and references to his grandmother’s tragic assassination in 1984 left many of his younger listeners — born in a period when Indira Gandhi was no longer a presence in Indian public life — completely mystified. Not surprisingly, Rahul could do little to prevent the Congress rout.
Agreed, these were local elections. National issues and leaders were largely peripheral. Nevertheless, to the extent it mattered, the national stature of Rahul didn’t help the Congress while that of Narendra Modi certainly helped the BJP.
Crude as it may sound, the verdict of December 8 left some of the senior functionaries of the Congress smiling. They had felt marginalised and ignored by Rahul, complaining he rarely listened and interrupted them mid-sentence when they offered suggestions at meetings. When they had recommended alliances in Bihar and Uttar Pradesh, he had said “No” and spoken of the Congress going alone. In the recent state elections, his manner of candidate selection and campaign pitch — talking of himself and his family, in a local, provincial campaign — was criticised in muted voices and left many in the Congress uncomfortable.
Was this a function of the old guard feeling slighted and worrying that as Sonia Gandhi retreated into the background, those who had thrived as part of her inner council would also be eased outIJ Alternatively, was it a genuine assessment that Rahul was making serious strategic mistakes and committing political hara-kiri, going for flamboyance rather than nitty-grittyIJ It was probably a mix of both.
The differences came to the fore in unorthodox ways. On November 17, top women leaders of the Congress addressed a media conference where they attacked Modi following the lurid allegations of him having ordered surveillance of a woman architect in Gujarat. The accusations were unfair and incorrect, and many in the Congress realised this. However, Rahul pushed the women leaders to loudly attack Modi. He even delayed a public meeting in Delhi’s Dakshinpuri area — the meeting eventually ended in a fiasco, but that’s another story — so that the media attention was on the women leaders’ intervention.
In the run up to the media conference, the women leaders received contrasting signals. While Rahul urged them to take on Modi, a senior Congress politician, very close to Sonia, phoned these very women members and told them to speak in understated tones and not make personal and below-the-belt allegations. “That is not the Congress tradition of politics,” the senior politician reportedly said. The discrepancy between the two sides — or two generations — was out in the open. It left those at the receiving end of the contradictory pieces of advice thoroughly confused.
How has December 8 changed all this and what does it mean for the futureIJ The Great Congress Washout has left Rahul looking silly. After years of “rebuilding” the party, after a year as vice-president — he was given the post in January 2013 in Jaipur — and after handling a succession of high-profile State elections, he has just not delivered. As a result, he has had to do many things.
First, he has had to put his weight behind the Government and not pretend that he is an insurgent, opposed to his party’s Government itself. Second, he has had to make himself more accessible, say, while addressing the media to make the case for the lokpal Bill. Third, he has had to accept that he can no longer play hide-and-seek with the leadership of the party and will have to play the commander’s role in 2014, for whatever it’s worth. Fourth, he has had to accept the necessity of alliances, even if this means compromising with abstract and high-minded principles.
The implication is Rahul is much more conducive to advice from the old guard, at least in the short run. To some degree, he is now a captive of the old guard, since his independent experiments have failed. The man who angrily dismissed the ordinance to exempt convicted politicians from prison terms while an appeal was pending as “nonsense”, sat quietly as leading ministers described the details of the lokpal Bill, attempting to appear not the rebel without a cause but the reassuring face of the establishment.
The annulment of the ordinance had sent lalu Yadav — convicted by a lower court of malfeasance in the fodder scandal — to prison. It had widened the gulf between him and the Congress. Now, as a consequence of December 8 and Rahul’s diminution, lalu and the Congress (and Ram Vilas Paswan) are negotiating a three-way alliance in Bihar for 2014. The Congress is open to making friends and stitching up partnerships, more open than it has been for some time. Rahul himself is willing to walk the extra mile.
The point is: Is it too lateIJ In Uttar Pradesh, the Muslim vote is gravitating towards Mayawati and the BSP is emerging as the strongest non-BJP force. The Congress would love an alliance but how does this help MayawatiIJ The Congress is keen to mollify, cajole and win back Mamata Banerjee in West Bengal. That too looks impossible. In Andhra Pradesh, the party hopes to tie up with the Telangana Rashtra Samithi in Telangana before the election and with YS Jaganmohan Reddy in Seemandhra (probably) after the election. There is no guarantee of either happening.
In Tamil Nadu, the DMK is patently not interested in tying up with the Congress. Never mind if the Prime Minister boycotted the Commonwealth summit in Sri lanka to curry favour with the Karunanidhi family. Suddenly the DMK has discovered Rahul Gandhi insulted M Karunanidhi when he (Rahul) didn’t call on the DMK patriarch while visiting Chennai in his forlorn attempt to revive the Youth Congress.
Most important, if Rahul leads the Congress to defeat in 2014 what of the plan to blame everything on Manmohan Singh and the UPA Government — and to sequester the Gandhi family from blameIJ
In truth, having tried to be too clever by half and run a Government by proxy, Sonia and Rahul have simply run out of options. Rahul has to carry the baton, even if he knows defeat in May 2014 is inevitable. His best bet is to ensure the Congress does not fall below the 100-seat mark and hope his leadership puts some cohesion back in the ranks. After that, a stint in Opposition and waiting for the new Government to begin to lose popularity look to be the only strategy. Far from providing answers to the Narendra Modi surge, Rahul and the Congress are left with question marks in their eyes.
malikashok@gmail.com