By Dr Dr. Nsungbemo Ezung
As the Indian National Congress (INC) faces another round of total decimation in the latest elections losing all the five states that went to the polls in February-March 2022, one of its senior leaders, Shashi Tharoor came up with the most blunt and critical assessment of the dismal fate of his party. While his unambiguous tweet “Change is unavoidable if we need to succeed” has the potential of inviting wrath from the party high command and its loyalists as his tweet amounts to directly challenging the credibility of the party’s leadership at the top, it would once again open the debate within the party on the need for a change of leadership and generational shift in order to revive the fortune of the party.
The INC today is akin to an aging squad where it is the old guards that continue to dominate the affairs of the party. These old Congressmen, including the Gandhis, despite their past achievements and reputations, had long lost their grassroots’ support base and relevance in Indian politics by relegating themselves to the power lobby in New Delhi at the mercy of the party high command. The Party no longer has the ability to infuse enthusiasm and motivation for the party loyalists and workers across the country. Congress leadership, however, appeared to be not ready to reconcile itself to this truth. Instead, the Congress Working Committee (CWC) in its first meeting after being routed in the five states election unanimously resolved to repose its faith in the leadership of the Gandhi family as the party relapsed to the same old excuses of not holding the central leaders and high command accountable for the party’s loss in states election.
While it is true that the result of one state election is not necessarily a “referendum to the national leadership,” – the Congress’ standard explanation – when the party keeps losing one state after another and one national election after another for the last two decades under the same leader/s then is it not high time that the party seriously introspects on the credibility of those leaders in leading and reviving the party? If there is one thing that the leaders of the grand old party of India need to do if they want to reverse their electoral fortunes in the country then it is that they need to relieve these old guards from their respective responsibilities and assignments they are holding in the party, and make way for the many young talents that are available within the party to assume command and lead the party. But there was one Sardarji who was an exception to this narration – Captain Amarinder Singh!
Captain Amarinder Singh has for the last two decades been among the few remaining popular grassroots leaders among the Congress veterans. Although his post-Congress political adventure failed to yield the desired result both for him and the new party that he had founded, the Congress under him in Punjab was once a formidable political force. Remember, Punjab under Captain Amarinder Singh was among the very few states in the country which could successfully halt Modi’s wave during the last decade. It was in 2017 when the ruling BJP was at its peak controlling more than half of the Indian states, Punjab was the state where Captain Amarinder Singh led the Congress to successfully wrest power from the then Akali Dal-BJP dispensation. Then came the 2019 Parliamentary Elections where the saffron party retained power at the center by virtually sweeping the whole of the country. In the same election, however, Punjab again was among the only few states in India which could not be breached by the BJP-Modi wave; Captain Amarinder Singh had again delivered 8 Lok Sabha seats, out of 13 in the state, for the Congress Party.
Congress High Command in New Delhi had, however, unfortunately failed to acknowledge this critical fact – the party’s status in the state and their popular leader. Instead, they simply allowed one BJP turncoat, Navjot Singh Sidhu, to take on their popular leader. The party’s central leadership watched in virtual silence as Sidhu waged a relentless campaign for four years, since he joined the party in 2017, against Captain Amarinder Singh to remove him from the position of Chief Minister. Instead of restraining Sidhu from campaigning against their very respected veteran, the party fuelled Sidhu by making him head of the party in the state in 2021 which had only emboldened the undisciplined Sidhu to intensify his campaign to remove Captain Amarinder as Chief Minister at any cost. And as Sidhu succeeded in removing Amarinder Singh, his party had to pay the high price to eventually lose in 2022 one of the last Congress bastions – Punjab. BJP must be relieved today given that Navjot Singh Sidhu had left the party: the one who did not get a chance to create trouble in the saffron party is today creating lots of trouble in Congress.
If the crisis in the past four years within the Congress in Punjab is any indication, then it is that the central leaders of the grand old party of India are either already in a state of being brain- dead, losing all aptitudes to read any unfolding crisis or they have lost control over the party. The inability of the central Congress leadership to control the infighting and factionalism among the Sardarjis reflects the overall dismal condition of the party.
The 2022 Punjab state election marks an end of an era in Indian politics in a sense that the curtains had come down on the illustrious and inspiring political careers of one of the most respected and leading Indian statesmen. And as Captain Amarinder Singh went down fighting, facing humiliation from his own party men, he had also ensured that those who had humiliated him and stole power from him also went down along with him. Charanjit Singh Channi, the man who replaced him as Chief Minister, lost from two assembly seats that he had contested, Navjot Singh Sidhu too lost and his former party was routed and left totally humiliated. As he loses, Congress too lost along with him.