Assembly elections 2016: Dump the inheritors

Assembly elections 2016: Dump the inheritors

FPJ BureauUpdated: Friday, May 31, 2019, 03:11 PM IST
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Thursday’s outcome, in the normal course, ought to have sent shock waves in the Congress Party. A stunning defeat in Assam and Kerala, and a lackadaisical performance in Tamil Nadu and West Bengal ought to be a cause of great concern for Congress. But aside from the perfunctory avowals to respect the verdict, and to introspect, there is nothing to show that the leadership has any intention of drawing the right lessons from the drubbing.

Like before, it is bound to be business as usual. Should you be surprised? Of course not, because when the leadership issue is non-negotiable, when the Gandhis are beyond reproach, when they are not accountable, there can be no introspection, no post-mortem of this or other resounding defeats under their watch. You can only feel sorry for Congressmen who have chosen the party as a career option.

However, meritorious, howsoever brilliant and hardworking, the top-most slots in the organization will stay out of bounds for everyone bar the members of the exalted Family. They might fail miserably as party leaders, might lack the wherewithal to lead a 125-year-plus grand old party of Nehru and Patel and a galaxy of other greats of the freedom movement, but there is no dislodging the Gandhis from their permanent perch as the party bosses.

They have an un-openable lock on the Congress President’s post and have thrown away the keys. This is the nub of the problem. Unless Congressmen can gather courage to do some plain-speaking, to call a spade a spade, the humiliating poll losses too would go in vain, without making a wee-bit of difference to the way the  party is run.

Whatever her other qualities, Sonia Gandhi at least had the good sense to lend her ears to the experienced and the wise in the old guard in the party. If the party still survives, it is because she knew her limitations and allowed herself to be guided by veterans like Ahmed Patel, A K Antony, Motilal Vora and a few others. Her son has distanced himself from his mother’s inner circle and has constituted his own. The trouble is that nearly everyone in his inner circle lacks grounding in politics and, worse, has no patience for the old guards who have spent a lifetime in the rough and tumble of this business.

Politics for Rahul and friends is an amateur sport which can be played in-between long spells of holidays in exotic locales and other after nursing other passions, money-making not excluded. The fact that the heir apparent makes himself unavailable even to the senior leaders, the fact that he goes missing from the political turf for long spells, the fact that he shows little interest in men and matters of national significance, the fact that he routinely humiliates Congressmen – ask his Assam tormentor Himanta Biswa Sarma – ought to be enough to prove that though he is the de facto boss of the Congress yet he has no real interest in discharging his duties with due maturity and responsibility.

The sooner the Congress is rid of such a reluctant and irresponsible boss the better it would be for the party’s revival. No other conclusion is possible after considering the conduct of Rahul Gandhi and the performance of his party in Parliament and in the electoral arenas.

Yes, there are a number of other family-owned parties. But they are regional and do not have a long and cherished history behind them. Why should Congressmen be a party, even if passive and inert, to the slow but certain decline of a party which had been closely associated with the country’s independence movement, albeit as an all-are-welcome single-issue platform. As it is, the political field is over-crowded with a number of new challengers who are far more adept and agile in playing the game than the Gandhis can ever be.

The GOP needs fresh blood, a new leadership which inspires confidence in the television age, and is able to build bridges with like-minded elements in the polity. It has had enough of the Gandhis who believe that it is their god-given right to control the Congress. Despite her decades as party boss, Sonia Gandhi can barely say a few sentences without reading from a script; of late her chosen heir tries valiantly to speak extempore but the lack of gravitas shows if he does so.

In sum, Congressmen would fail themselves and their party if they do not stand up and ask some tough questions of the Gandhis. It is time they discovered their collective tongue and made good use of it to salvage the situation before it is too late. Dump the usurpers. Go for merit. Only then can you hope to prosper.

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