Another Congress crisis

The grand old party must stop the accelerating rot

Senior Congress leader Veerappa Moily’s assertion on Thursday that the Congress needs to undergo a major surgery, and people with competence and mass base should be given charge of states is an obvious prescription for India’s oldest political party which has been in the intensive care unit for quite some time now. Rahul Gandhi acolyte Jitin Prasada’s exit from the party and entry into the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) a little over a year after another Gandhi associate Jyotiraditya Scindia in Madhya Pradesh crossed the floor with 22 party legislators underlines the accelerating rot in the party. Mr Prasada’s leap across the ideological divide may be dismissed as cynical opportunism. Indeed, many, including Mr Moily, have argued that his standing within the Congress had diminished after the poor showing in handling the West Bengal Assembly elections. All this may well be true, but the practical fact remains that the timing of his exit a year ahead of elections in Uttar Pradesh couldn’t have been worse for the Congress, and is certainly the BJP’s gain in more ways than one. First, Mr Prasada bolsters the BJP’s standing with Uttar Pradesh’s Brahmins — currently a weak spot for Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath, a Thakur, who is perceived to have harmed this caste’s interests in the state. Second, Mr Prasada’s exit has sent out a powerful signal. By unctuously describing the BJP as the “only national party”, he has clearly indicated that the Congress has run its race.

Beyond issuing weak statements about Mr Prasada’s perfidy, the Congress high command would do better to use this crisis to act and create the space for the next non-family generation to lead the party skilfully in the face of the BJP’s polarising religious nationalism. Nearly two years after Mr Gandhi’s resignation as party president in 2019, claiming responsibility for the party’s poor performance in the Lok Sabha elections, the party remains a narrow Nehru-Gandhi family enterprise, just as Narendra Modi has frequently stigmatised it. Instead of pushing the reset button, the leadership reverted to Mr Gandhi’s ailing mother and a coterie of aged worthies who have manifestly failed the party in the 21st century. As the party leadership wallows in stasis, Mr Gandhi and his sister, who is not even an elected functionary, inexplicably continue to play an opaque role in the affairs of the party, and crises such as the one roiling the party in Punjab are allowed to fester.

In August last year, 23 senior Congress leaders courageously reminded Sonia Gandhi of what needed to be done, setting out in a letter the need for “certainty” in the leadership, decentralisation of power, empowerment of state units, and the constitution of a central parliamentary board. The damaging lack of this last institution was amply clear in the confused response to the government’s reading down of Jammu & Kashmir’s special status in 2019. No less important is the need for internal elections, which have been postponed frequently for one reason or another. Prominent “Young Turks” such as Sachin Pilot and Milind Deora are making noises of discontent that should raise more red flags. In the context of Mr Prasada’s exit, Mr Deora, who occasionally tweeted his appreciation of Mr Modi, has talked of the Congress reclaiming its position as a “big tent party”. That advice may have come too late.