Old order changeth: How Rahul Gandhi is changing the Congress organisation

C P Joshi, the Congress leader from Rajasthan, served as the general secretary in-charge of all the northeastern states, including Nagaland for over two years. 

To illustrate how incongruous such appointments were, Congress workers from northeast recount how Joshi, a vegetarian from the other end of India, landed in Kohima and demanded his kind of vegetarian food. 

Local Congress leaders struggled to find the kind of vegetarian food Joshi might like and discovered it in the home of a local Marwari businessman. Joshi was happy, but the local Congress leadership found a bone to pick with their central leadership’s choice.

Their anger wasn’t to do with Joshi’s food habits or his lack of understanding of Naga culture and politics. It was the fact that the Marwari businessman was a local Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader. By the time assembly polls were held in Nagaland earlier this year, the local leadership was accusing Joshi of single-handedly destroying the party in the state. 

Recent internal party appointments by Congress chief Rahul Gandhi have tried to buck this earlier trend of arbitrariness. Joshi, for example, was in-charge of the entire northeast, Bengal and Bihar. Gone are the days when a handful of general secretaries oversaw party organisations of the entire country. Under Gandhi, the party has followed the rule of appointing a central leader in-charge of one state each. 

On Saturday, Gandhi appointed Mallikarjun Kharge as in-charge of Maharashtra. Kharge hails from neighbouring Karnataka, and knows Maharashtra politics well. In May, Gandhi had appointed young Gaurav Gogoi as the in-charge of West Bengal and Andaman and Nicobar Islands. Gogoi hails from Assam. 

Lok Sabha member from Maharashtra Rajeev Satav was appointed in-charge of Gujarat, while Gujarat leader Shaktisinh Gohil as Bihar in-charge has kept up the pressure on the uneasy alliance between Nitish Kumar and BJP. In Madhya Pradesh, Mohan Prakash was replaced by Dipak Babaria and R P N Singh, along with state chief Ajoy Kumar, have come to make a good team in Jharkhand. 

Party insiders say the recent appointments have also smoothened the ruffled feathers of some of the seniors, several of whom have been accommodated in the leadership structure. Apart from Kharge’s appointment, Kerala leader Oomen Chandy is now in-charge of Andhra Pradesh. Former Rajasthan chief minister Ashok Gehlot has emerged the most influential of the older guard, but there are also those who find themselves sidelined. 

Leaders like Ghulam Nabi Azad and Ahmed Patel, considered close to United Progressive Alliance (UPA) chairperson Sonia Gandhi, have been accorded respect. Several younger leaders have found their place in the sun, like Mahila Congress chief Sushmita Dev and Lok Sabha member K C Venugopal. 

Recent appointments have also shown how a temporary demotion is unlikely to be the end of the road for a leader in the party, and that hard work and loyalty are being increasingly recognised. Sonal Patel from Gujarat and Ashish Dua from Haryana have been appointed secretaries for Maharashtra. Former legislator Lalitesh Tripathi, the great grandson of well-known Congress leader Kamalapati Tripathi, and an upcoming leader in Uttar Pradesh, was included in the candidates screening committee for the Rajasthan assembly polls.