The great big election: A non-Gandhi to head Congress after over 2 decades

The new president will be elected on October 17 and October 19 will bring the answer

The G23, the ginger group in the Congress that started its campaign to have a “full-time” president of the party in August 2020, reckons it has won.

“We wrote a letter to the Congress president, asking for elections to throw up an active full-time president. We are now seeing elections take place. So you could say that we have achieved our objective,” said a senior leader in the now-depleted group, as many of its members have quit the Congress.

He added: “Of course, the real test would have been to have elections for the Congress Working Committee (CWC) as well. That will likely follow.”

With the formal election process in motion, a creaking machinery has been activated though opacity remains in some aspects. The party’s election committee chief, Madhusudan Mistry, would, on October 1, the deadline for scrutiny of nominations, still not explain why former Jharkhand minister K N Tripathi’s papers had been rejected when he announced only two candidates were in the race: Veteran leader Mallikarjun Kharge and former Union minister and MP Shashi Tharoor. He also clarified that no candidate was either the official or unofficial choice of the Gandhi family. “They are contesting on their own. The Gandhi family has not endorsed anyone,” he said.

But there is some evidence that this election, despite the overhang of the Gandhis, is something approaching a “normal” one. The outlines of a campaign are emerging. “I’m saying that if you’re satisfied with the party’s working, vote for Kharge sahab. If you want change, I’m there. But there’s no ideological problem,” said Tharoor at a press conference.

“I was encouraged by all leaders, party workers and delegates from key states to contest. I thank those who were present by my side at the time of filing the nomination papers,” said Kharge. “Kerala is not a key state?” murmured a Tharoor supporter present in the crowd.

Elections on: But what about the CWC

But of course, this election is nothing like previous ones the party has had and the sleight of hand prime ministers and past party chiefs have used to get “their” candidates elected. The 1992 session of the All India Congress Committee in Tirupati, for instance, was one such. P V Narasimha Rao, then prime minister and Congress president, needed to have a party that respected and obeyed him. To control the party, he needed to control the Congress Working Committee (CWC).

The CWC is the highest executive committee of the Congress. According to the party constitution, apart from the president (of the party) and when in power, the prime minister, it has 23 members. Twelve are elected by the All India Congress Committee and the rest are nominated by the party president. In recent times, the CWC has seen elections only twice.

To Rao’s dismay, the Tirupati session and the CWC election threw up two of his biggest detractors: Arjun Singh and Sharad Pawar. Realising that if the two leaders were present in the highest decision-making body in the party they would question and stymie every decision, Rao announced he was ashamed that the party had failed to elect anyone from the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes. No woman was elected member of the CWC, either. He then asked all the CWC members (who were elected) to resign and a nominated CWC was put in place.

In 1997, when the president was Sitaram Kesri, then 82, the Calcutta session of the Congress also saw CWC elections. This time, Ahmed Patel, Madhav Rao Scindia, and Pranab Mukherjee became members of the CWC. No questions were raised about the election. But the Congress had lost the 1996 Lok Sabha election. Sonia Gandhi joined the Congress formally in 1997. In March 1998, messages were sent to Kesri that he might want to yield in favour of Sonia Gandhi. The CWC passed a resolution asking Sonia Gandhi to become president of the party. Kesri resigned, and Rajiv Gandhi’s widow, who had till then not contested a single election, became president of the party.

By 1999, Sonia Gandhi’s stamp on the party was complete. Little wonder that when Jitendra Prasada, former political secretary to Rajiv Gandhi and later Rao, contested the election for party president, he was comprehensively defeated. Sonia got 7,000-plus votes, Prasada below 100. The CWC passed a resolution giving her the authority to recast the CWC. No elections were held in the party for any position after that. In 2017, Rahul Gandhi was elected president as a consensus candidate.

What happens now

“The family wants someone (as president) who won’t talk back, will not exert himself too much, basically an unquestioning, unthreatening loyalist,” said a G23 member.

Will elections to the CWC be held?

The new president will be elected on October 17. October 19 will bring the answer.