With no one at helm, Congress is fast losing its political capital

The Congress’ battle with itself — between Rahul Gandhi and the party veterans — has reached a stalemate. With Sonia Gandhi, United Progressive Alliance (UPA) chairperson, restricting herself to leading the party in Parliament and unwilling to intervene, the Congress does not have the services of the only umpire that all sides trust, to break the impasse.

 

As the delay in electing Rahul’s successor lengthens, the limbo is costing the Congress, and the dynasty, substantial political capital. Earlier this week, Congress strategists called a meeting of opposition leaders in Sonia’s office in Parliament. She is the Congress parliamentary party chief.

 

While representatives of the Left and the Bahujan Samaj Party reached her office, leaders of the Trinamool Congress and the Samajwadi Party did not. They said a suitable venue for an opposition meeting to decide on a common floor strategy in the Rajya Sabha should be the office of Leader of the Opposition Ghulam Nabi Azad. Congress strategists, in a bid to hide their embarrassment, later denied having planned any meeting at Sonia’s office.

 

On Wednesday, Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) chief M K Stalin sent party MP Tiruchi Siva to invite Trinamool chief and West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee to unveil a statue of former DMK chief M K Karunanidhi at the party organ Murasoli’s headquarters on the leader’s first death anniversary on August 7 in Chennai.

 

The DMK is a constituent of the Congress-led UPA, while the Trinamool is not. The Congress and the Trinamool are also frenemies in Bengal. On inviting Banerjee instead of Sonia, DMK sources said Sonia had inaugurated Karunanidhi’s statue at DMK headquarters in December.

 

However, the import of an invite to Banerjee, with Rahul no longer his party’s chief and keeping a low profile, was not lost on Congressmen. Both the Trinamool and the DMK are preparing to battle the BJP, and its allies like the AIADMK, in the Assembly elections in their respective states in 2021. Banerjee is currently the feistiest critic of the Narendra Modi government.

 

With Rahul back from his brief sojourn abroad, there is hope among some Congress leaders and workers that he would overcome his recriminations with the veterans and set about rebuilding the party. However, any such expectations seem misplaced.

 

According to party insiders, Rahul is of the view, which a close aide has espoused, that the party needs to “burn down to ashes” before it can rise again to reclaim its lost glory.

 

The veterans, whose most public face is senior leader Ahmed Patel, believe any further stress to the party organisation, in terms of a split triggered by an election for the post of the party chief between Rahul’s  nominee versus theirs, could cause an interminable decline of the party.

 

The veterans argue the time is not for “fission” but “fusion”, to conserve whatever is left of the party. They also do not want a repeat of 1969 when the ‘old guard’ of the time faced off with Indira Gandhi, which led the Congress to split.

 

Rahul wants the old guard to give way to the younger generation. He believes they should share the blame for the loss in the Lok Sabha polls and that Patel should restrict himself to raising funds for the party and leave the running of the party entirely to him and his team.

 

As he observed in his statement of July 3, “it is a habit in India that the powerful cling to power, no one sacrifices power. But we will not defeat our opponents without sacrificing the desire for power and fighting a deeper ideological battle.”

 

Sonia and Priyanka Gandhi Vadra, the party general secretary for eastern Uttar Pradesh, do not entirely disagree with the line the veterans have taken, yet they will back Rahul to the hilt in whatever course of action he chooses to take.

 

Rahul and his team hope to shape a new politics with the help of movement groups and plans to lend his voice to any battle in the country to protest injustice and raise people’s issues, as Priyanka did after 10 tribals were killed over a land dispute in UP’s Sonbhadra. “Rahulji is a believer in crowdfunding. Unfortunately, the last attempt at crowdfunding had failed,” a party worker said. Priyanka and her team, sources said, are more realistic and know Patel’s skills are needed to run the party and to pay salaries of party full-timers.

 

Rahul has decided to keep a low profile until the party elects a new president. He does not want to disrupt the process. The veterans, however, complain Rahul is neither taking control of the party nor letting them.