GANDHI SCION IS NO NATURAL POLITICIAN
By Kalyani Shankar
Senior Congress leader Makhan Lal Fotedar’s forthcoming book Chinar Leaves has brought to the fore once again the discomfort between the old and the new guard in the 130-year-old Congress party. Fotedar is only voicing the desperation among sections of the Congress that Rahul Gandhi is not inspiring and he is not a natural or a 24X7 politician.
The veteran Congress Working Committee member and a long time Gandhi family loyalist, has told an interviewer recently that the Congress is again on the verge of collapse 16 years after Mrs Sonia Gandhi took over. “However, this time there is no saviour.” No doubt Fotedar is feeling frustrated, sidelined and dumped but the Congress leadership has to sit up and see why he is emboldened to say these things. It should also see why the Congress is struggling to enforce a generational change while the BJP has successfully managed it with Prime Minister Modi in complete control of the party and the government. While Modi reversed his political untouchability after the Godhra massacre with his well-crafted communication strategy, Rahul seems to have done just the opposite despite his Gandhi surname.
For the past year, the Congress president Sonia Gandhi has virtually handed over the baton to her son. Since then there has been a tug of war between the Sonia coterie and Rahul Gandhi’s supporters who are working at cross-purposes. The status quo culture of the Gandhis has added to the chaos, as the Congress has not thrown out those who were responsible for the debacle.
While the younger generation is hopeful of finding a place in Rahul’s new team the old guard is busy protecting their individual interests. There is a perception Rahul Gandhi is averse to leaders above 60 years of age in his team and this has been strengthened by statements made by senior leaders like Janardhan Dwivedi and Jairam Ramesh. The old guard is also unsure about the direction or lack of it in the party and more so after the 2014 debacle which has not yet been discussed in the AICC.
As it happens this is not the first time this generational change is taking place. Indira Gandhi sidelined the Nehru generation of leaders like Sanjiva Reddy, Morarji Desai and Nijalingappa and built her own coterie. Rajiv Gandhi replaced Indira Gandhi’s coterie by Arun Singh, Arun Nehru, Oscar Fernandes and Ahmed Patel. Sonia Gandhi chose her own advisers. So this transition keeps on happening all the time.
While there can be no quarrel about Rahul choosing his own team the anxiety is that he should choose the right people. So far, most of those he had chosen have proved to be not up to the mark as in the case of Pradesh Congress Presidents in Punjab, Haryana, and Madhya Pradesh. Bihar, Delhi, Tamil Nadu, UP, Bihar or Maharashtra. The known faces of his team at the AICC include people like Madhusudan Mistry, Sanjay Nirpuam, Mohan Prakash and other rootless wonders.
The old guard is aghast that their supporters are sidelined as it has happened in Haryana, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu, Delhi, Odisha, UP and Bihar. This is not confined to one state as in almost all the states the senior leaders feel like Kamalnath, Digvijaya Singh, Hooda, Ajit Jogi and Captain Amarinder Singh feel that their supporters are cut to size.
Secondly, while they had access to Sonia Gandhi, of late the Congress President directs them to talk to Rahul on every issue and they are unable to approach him. The Rahul coterie feels that the old guard had developed vested interests and has even stalled Rahul Gandhi becoming the Congress President this year.
Fotedar is perhaps expressing his frustration when he told an interviewer recently, “History is threatening to repeat itself. It is a matter of time before Soniaji’s and Rahul’s leadership is challenged from within the party. I will be observing closely how they stand up to this looming challenge, because Sonia is not Indira and Rahul is not Sanjay.” But he is only echoing the sentiment, expressed by many Congressmen in private. The effort is also to instill a fear in the Gandhi family. However, the time has not come for open revolt mainly because there is no one to lead the rebels. So they are just confined to talking in terms of ‘save the Congress. ’
In such a scenario, the Congress leadership needs to do some surgery in the party. The first thing is to arrest the unease and reassure the old guard. The second is to build up the party.
The third is to strengthen the party in the states, particularly those which are going to polls next year like West Bengal, Tamil Nadu, Kerala and Assam besides building up the organisation in the Hindi heartland where it has no presence.
The fourth is to identify and build up good state level leadership and get rid of the deadwood and have a mix of old and young leaders in Rahul Gandhi’s new team. The fifth is to prepare the party at the grassroots level and strengthen the booth-level activities. Above all try to see that those who had left the party and built up their own outfits could be brought back.
If the Grand alliance in which the Congress is a minor partner wins Bihar, then the morale of the party will be boosted. Then perhaps Fotedar’s statements may end up as a storm in the teacup but the Gandhis should take it as a wake up call. (IPA Service)