Sheila Dikshit will face her second humiliation in just over two years. After the Congress’s crushing defeat in the Delhi Assembly elections in February last year when the party couldn’t win a single seat, the former Delhi chief minister is now heading for another grievous political blow in UP in 2017.
While the fortitude she has shown by agreeing to be her party’s “face” in the U.P. Assembly polls underlines her loyalty to the Congress, which is admirable in these days of fickle political affiliations, the virtually suicidal venture points to much of what is wrong with the party.
For one, the hype about Rahul Gandhi encouraging the youth has been belied with the fielding of the 78-year-old former chief minister and Kerala governor.
For another, her selection on the grounds that as a Brahmin, she will attract the votes of her caste – Brahmins comprise about 10 per cent of the voters in the state – nullifies the Congress’ claims of being secular and non-sectarian.
Even if the choice was based on a suggestion by the party’s election strategist Prashant Kishor, who is an outsider, such an obvious casteist calculation should have been rejected by the high command comprising Sonia and Rahul Gandhi.
But hopeful as the mother and son are on making some headway in UP by whatever means, it would have been too much to expect them to endorse the Congress’s time-honoured, but now forgotten, anti-caste principles.
Instead of focussing on caste, the emphasis should have been on her three successive victories in Delhi and a creditable performance as the chief minister. If she lost, it was not because of her own failures, but because of the follies of the Sonia Gandhi – Manmohan Singh combination which dragged the Congress’s reputation through mud because of the allegations of corruption and policy paralysis. It was the failures of the Manmohan Singh government which made the Delhi electorate reject the Congress and turn to the untested Arvind Kejriwal.
But all that is in the past. For the present, the reality is that Dikshit and the Congress are likely to end up in the fourth position yet again behind the BJP, Samajwadi Party and the BSP.
If Dikshit is nevertheless being used as a sacrificial lamb, the reason is to shield Rahul and Priyanka from adverse criticism after the party’s defeat. The need for a protective buffer is all the greater because Priyanka is expected to play a larger than ever role for the first time.
For the Congress, it is the last throw of the dice. If Priyanka is at all being asked to campaign outside the family bastions of Raebareli and Amethi, the reason is pressure from below. For the first time, the feudals in their fortified mansions are having to bow to the demands of the lowly serfs.
The latter have long seen in Priyanka the only hope of reviving the party since her elder brother has come a cropper. It will be a blow to her supporters among the rank and file if the Congress’s failure is laid at her door. If Dikshit takes the blame, Priyanka can live to fight another day.
What the Congress will have to realise, however, is that such improvisation or jugaad, as ad-libbing is colloquially described in north India, cannot be a long-term solution to the party’s problems which are the dearth of capable leaders and disconnect with the people.
Unless these deficiencies are rectified, the roping in of old war horses will not only be of little use, but the brave volunteers for the political chopping block will end their careers in ignominy.
The Congress’ disadvantage is that virtually for the first time in its history, it is facing an adversary which has a majority in the Lok Sabha and a leader whose popularity ratings are still high because of the hopes he offers of boosting economic growth.
In the years before 2014, the Congress faced fragmented opponents. Even in 1977, the “united” Janata Party was a combination of the Congress (Organisation), Jan Sangh, the Lok Dal, Jagjivan Ram’s breakaway faction from Indira Gandhi’s Congress and a number of former socialist party members.
The other disadvantage is that the present generation of the Nehru – Gandhis does not have the charisma of their forbears, including Rajiv Gandhi. Nor do they seem to believe in the latter’s promise of taking the country into the 21st century. Instead, the present-day Nehru-Gandhis appear to live in the 1970s and ’80s since they rarely speak in favour of the economic reforms, presumably because the liberalisation process was initiated by someone who did not belong to the Congress’s first family.
This outlook, which is frozen in the past, is a major reason why the aspirational youth of today has little time for the Congress. The resultant distance between the party and large sections of the voters cannot be bridged by rolling out someone like Dikshit who may have been a competent administrator but is not a crowd-puller.
