By Patricia Mukhim
“Congress party workers seem a dejected lot. An MLA who did not wish to be quoted said the infighting in the party (Mukul versus Pala controversy) played a role in their defeat since people were unsure of voting a Party whose leadership is under contest. Moreover, the campaign itself was negative in tone and tenor. The Congress did not offer an alternative vision.”
After the frenetic campaign for the three Assembly seats the Congress drew a blank. On the day of the counting when the MPCC President should be around to comfort his confreres who lost in the by-polls, he was in Glasgow photographed with Prime Minister Modi. Mr Pala happens to be the Convenor of the Parliamentary Committee on Climate which according to him is meant to advise the Prime Minister of India on what to say and what not to say at the COP26 summit. Was it important for Mr Pala to be at Glasgow? Well, that’s a question that the Shillong Lok Sabha MP is best placed to answer. The working President of the Party, Ampareen Lyngdoh did brief the media but the absence of the Party Chief left many Congress workers feeling orphaned. It’s not a good feeling to lose elections; not especially for the candidates. Mawryngkneng candidate, Highlander Kharmalki did not speak to the media on learning of his loss. Nor did Ms Hashina Mondal of Rajabala. Kennedy Khyriem who contested from Mawphlang gave his bytes to the media and said he never expected that his rival, Eugeneson would outdo him by over 4000 votes.
Congress party workers seem a dejected lot. An MLA who did not wish to be quoted said the infighting in the party (Mukul versus Pala controversy) played a role in their defeat since people were unsure of voting a Party whose leadership is under contest. Moreover, the campaign itself was negative in tone and tenor. The Congress did not offer an alternative vision. All it did was to lambast the NPP and the MDA coalition. Beyond a point, negativity sucks. People want to know what a candidate will do for the constituency when he/she is elected. There is something in the human spirit that tends to feel compassion for a candidate that’s being ridiculed or verbally assaulted for no good reason but just because he/she belongs to a rival party. So, the Congress campaign largely backfired.
The Congress as has always been the case does not practice inner-party democracy and that starts at the top. The undemocratic manner of giving tickets to candidates that are pulled into the Party at the eleventh hour, often without consultation with the Block Presidents and literally dumping candidates on them is what has made the cookie crumble for the Congress. At the national level there is that section that wants a more democratic process in electing the Party President but they have been treated as intruders into the Nehru-Gandhi dynastic arrangement. In a sense the Congress is no different from the BJP, in that the Party expects absolute compliance to the supreme leader – in this case Sonia Gandhi who continues to pull the strings, with Rahul Gandhi remaining the unwilling president who could not lead the party to victory in election after election. The BJP’s standard quip that as long as Rahul Gandhi is at the helm, the BJP is in a comfortable position, should have made the Party reflect on the meaning and intent of the above punch line. But reflection has never been a strong point with any political party, least of all the Congress.
Now after the by-polls there are rumours flying thick and fast that Dr Mukul Sangma will be leaving the Congress (I use the word rumours with some because that’s what happens in politics. Rumours only coalesce when the actors have joined a new Party or created a new party a la Captain Amarinder Singh) and join the TMC along with other MLAs. Rumours are also afloat that some Congress MLAs might join the UDP and others the NPP. So, then what’s left of the Congress in Meghalaya? It’s never a good idea for politicians to be in the Opposition for too long; not in a system where hard cash makes sense. To speak about fighting elections on principles is wishful thinking. It simply does not happen. This time a lot of money changed hands and from all parties contesting the polls. Intelligent voters got their pound of flesh including some who jumped ship post-midnight to support some other candidate after having pledged allegiance to one candidate at public meetings. Those who believe there’s anything like a clean election live in a world of make-believe. Money talks. Period.
The Conrad-Pala-Kharlukhi bond is also troubling for many Congress party workers who are intuitive enough to comprehend that there’s more than just a ‘friendship’ with one and a ‘filial’ bond with the other. Politics is a strange game and anyone who has joined this game knows that political calculations and political survival matter more than loyalty to any single party. People walk in and walk out of political parties and we as voters should neither be critical of such people or indeed expect politicians to have scruples.
Coming to the Congress Party one can say with some amount of certainty that this is a Party whose narrative has run its course. Today the Party is unsure if it stands for anything. To be a secular party the Congress needs to be completely neutral in its treatment of all religious faith. It cannot be tilted towards the minorities because that is precisely why the majority Hindus in this country feel they have been cheated by the Congress and are supporting the BJP with a vengeance. I agree with the poll strategist Prashant Kishor that the BJP is not going away any time soon and that the Congress should come to terms with this fact. 2024 will go the BJP way because the Ram Mandir at Ayodhya will be a big draw. The BJP has positioned itself as the vanguard of Hindu pride and despite all that Modi has done such as the Demonetisation and the CAA the BJP still has not lost its constituencies. There are many who expect 2022 to bring reversals for the BJP in Goa, Uttar Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Manipur and Gujarat. But by the time the election clock ticks the BJP would have used its election machinery to the hilt even while the Congress continues to falter on its leadership.
In life as in politics, change is the only thing constant but nothing has changed in the Congress since the time of Indira Gandhi. She didn’t believe in inner-party democracy because she was insecure and rightly so after facing the kind of dissensions she did. But which leader doesn’t face dissension? Leaders are called so because they know to handle discords and to bring consensus through consultations not through impositions of their writ. The Congress’s Achilles Heel is in its appointment of State level presidents. The Congress High Command sends its emissaries many of whom don’t understand the politics in the states they visit other than cursory feedback. These emissaries come and consult with a few people at the top after which they give their feedback. We don’t hear of AICC bigwigs consulting grass-roots workers if only to show that the consultative process is democratic. If there are elections to the Primary units and the Block Congress then why should there not be voting for the Pradesh President? This is what has created a power centre in the Congress. Those close to the AICC also get to become Pradesh Presidents. Of course, the same is true of the BJP too where Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Home Minister Amit Shah take all important decisions for the Party. It is a reality of life that power is a passage to the absolutism of the chosen ones; the me-alone leaders. But this creates dystopia that trickles down and the discontent just multiplies. This discontent will afflict the BJP too unless it mends its ways. The Congress is already facing a dystopia lumped over a long period. A dystopia that has aggravated after remaining out of power.