Pain was palpable as Congress interim president Sonia Gandhi addressed party parliamentarians on Tuesday. The drubbing the party received at the five-state assembly polls was the last straw on the ailing camel’s back. She called for unity and said she would try and accommodate the views of all in the attempts at revitalizing the party. This is easier said than done. The G-23 group of senior leaders are hemming and hawing for some time. Their future too is at stake but fact is none of them has the outstanding profile to stand upfront and chart a new course for the party.
What was often stated remains true of the Congress party even now. The “family” is the glue that binds its constituents together. It started as the Congress-Indira after the epic split in the Congress party in 1969. It functioned on Indira Gandhi’s charisma. Nehru family was still the toast of the season. This scenario has changed over the years despite the sacrifices the family made for the country. The corruption of the UPA period hurt the image of the Congress as also Sonia Gandhi badly. There is a sense of utter hopelessness today. The Hindutva push per se is not the reason. The Congress as an entity failed to keep up its organizational heft in every state. Yet, the party is there everywhere. What it lacks is a strong leadership. Sonia Gandhi has serious health problems and cannot travel.
At a stage where the Congress party has no leader outside of the “family” who carries abundant clout or possesses a national appeal, the only way forward is to keep the family in the forefront. It had two options to explore in recent times; namely to try out Rahul and Priyanka. When Priyanka was given charge of Uttar Pradesh, expectations were that she would effect a noticeable turnaround there. This hope has fallen flat. On the other hand, Rahul Gandhi is steadily strengthening his profile; and his speech in parliament at the start of the budget session was widely appreciated. Sonia Gandhi herself was in favour of handing over the baton to her son. The old guard that thrived under her, which had their own vested interests, wanted to delay this leadership transition process. That stage should be past now. An informed view is that the baton must be passed on to Rahul Gandhi without further delay and it should now be up to him to make a last try – for the Congress to sail or sink. Organisational polls at state levels can still be attempted at, to rejuvenate the party.
