The answer to that lies perhaps not on one, but on various levels. After all, it is on various levels that the party is fighting its battles. First, there was the 2G spectrum allocation scam of 2010, then came the noise over the irregular handing of coal blocks over a period of five years, followed by a mishandling of the 16 December 2012 Delhi gangrape protests, a misreading of the agitation over the Lokpal Bill, the emergence of the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP), the debacle in the Assembly polls in Chhattisgarh, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and Delhi: the list could go on and read like a roll call on how a party in power should not conduct itself. Even so, the Congress leadership continues to weather the storm. That is, apparently. Talk to any party leader off the record and he or she will tell you that the cracks are real. But, just how real are they?
Real enough, it would seem, for many senior Congressmen to decide not to contest the upcoming Lok Sabha polls. “Better work to strengthen the party organisation, than risk losing an election,” they feel. Word is that many general secretaries of the All India Congress Committee (AICC) subscribe to this and will not contest the polls. Although there's been no official confirmation or communiqué on this decision yet, if true, this could mean that many old-timers, including the likes of Shakeel Ahmed, Ambika Soni, Ajay Maken, Madhusudan Mistry, CP Joshi and Gurudas Kamat will be notable misses. The party will have to take a call on this soon.
So real is this fear of losing that some partymen have started making their point heard, as was evident from the conference of the Congress chief ministers in the capital on 27 December 2013.
In the meeting called to discuss the twin issues of price rise and corruption, many Congress chief ministers complained that the central government did not keep them on board while formulating important policy. One chief minister raised the Food Security Act and the spot it had put his government in. “The Centre has guaranteed 20 kg of ration to each family, while the state government has allocated 4 kg per person,” he said. “So, a family of five loses out on 4 kg. Such anomalies do not help the government or the Congress.” Although it was decided in the meeting to ensure that no family gets less than what it was previously entitled to, it is anomalies such as this that have brought out the disconnect between the Centre and the states.
Another issue which was discussed in the meeting was hoarding, with onions setting the tone. Before the Delhi polls, onion prices had skyrocketed to as much as Rs 100 a kilo, but this immediately came down to Rs 20 as soon as the polls ended. It was decided that all Congress-ruled states would remove fruit and vegetables from under the Agriculture Produce Market Committees (APMC). Party sources inform this would reduce the price at which these products are available in the market by allowing the farmer to sell his produce in the market directly, hence eliminating the middleman.
The party is very serious about how to tackle the issue of corruption, which has proven to be the biggest thorn on the UPA's side. The government is even planning to call a short session of Parliament in which all pending anti-corruption legislations will be passed. To ensure that all the states are on the same page as the Centre, a model Lokayukta Bill cleared by the Union government will be circulated among all the Congress-ruled states. All the states will adopt that Bill before 28 February. So acute was the desire to make all these deliberations public that Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi held a press conference with all the chief ministers in the Congress headquarters after the meeting.
In a sense, the chief ministers' meeting was indicative of the urgency the party is now beginning to feel. The question, however, is whether this urgency has come too late in the day? Going by the mood in the party rank and file, it has. Many of them are resigned to a five-year stint out of power. The worst hit from this are the party cadre. Dejected and clueless about the party's direction, the cadre of the Congress present a sharp contrast to the buoyed cadre of the BJP and the AAP. In states like Madhya Pradesh, Gujarat, Bihar, Chhattisgarh, Punjab, Odisha and Uttar Pradesh, the leadership is finding it tough to spur the cadre to any action. Leaders from Uttar Pradesh and Bihar have openly told the central leadership that the debacle in the Assembly polls is telling on the enthusiasm of the party workers.
The losses in the Assembly polls have been creating problems for the Congress in many ways. Besides an overall deflation of enthusiasm, the losses, particularly the emergence of the AAP in the political landscape of the nation following the Delhi election, has ended up confusing partymen. So much so that in some instances, Congress leaders are going all out to imitate the AAP model of addressing the grievances of the people, sometimes, worryingly, at the expense of their own government.
As in the case of Maharashtra, where Congress MPs from Mumbai, Sanjay Nirupam and Priya Dutt threatened to sit on a dharna if the state government did not lower the electricity tariffs in Mumbai. This caused major embarrassment to Maharashtra Chief Minister Prithviraj Chavan as the MPs were taking on their own party's government. As if these two were not enough, Congress MP from South Mumbai and MoS, Milind Deora, also joined the bandwagon by tweeting that the Maharashtra government should act on the findings of the inquiry commission which was set up to probe the Adarsh Housing Society Scam of 2010. It did not help that Rahul Gandhi too echoed Deora's words when taking a question on the issue from the media.
Earlier, Rahul had also talked about how there were lessons to be learnt in the way AAP had conducted the Delhi election. This did not sit well with many Congressmen. “It is one thing to say this in meetings where we are discussing electoral strategy but quite another to say this in public,” says a senior Congress leader. “It is like accepting in public that what we are doing is wrong and now we will learn from you; it is extremely embarrassing.” But true to the Congress culture, where whatever the Gandhi scion says becomes the ultimate truth, local leaders have taken his words to an almost absurd level. The AAP style has now become the Congress style, and Maharashtra is just an example of that.
In fact, Milind Deora is walking the AAP line so much that on many occasions, he has had to take up the cudgel against both the Central and the state governments. Deora was seen leading the Campa Cola Society residents in agitation against the demolition orders, once again finding himself on the opposite side of the table with the Congress government in the state. Then came the comment on the Adarsh issue and finally, his tweet on the need to fine-tune the MP Local Area Development (MPLAD) funds. The young leader was also seen at the Bhendi Bazaar Urdu Festival in his constituency, leaving nothing to chance.
In another instance, the party leadership was caught unaware when Rural Development Minister Jairam Ramesh commented that AAP was raising legitimate issues and the political class should desist from making fun of them. He also went on to add that the VIP culture persisting in the country is a nuisance for the common man. “Coming from Jairam Ramesh, who not only holds an important position in the Congress, but has also been made a coordinator of the committee for the upcoming Lok Sabha election, it was highly discomfiting,” says a Congress leader.
It finally took a rap on the knuckles from old warhorse and party general secretary Janardhan Dwivedi to remind Ramesh where his allegiances lie. Dwivedi said that such statements are made by people who have had a lateral entry into the Congress. Seeing that Ramesh is an MP of the Rajya Sabha and has never had to face a direct election, this was as hard as it could get. One saw a changed Ramesh waxing eloquent about the Congress' history, ideology and governance, but by then the damage had been done.
This is one of several examples when senior leaders have, in their individual capacities, put the party in an embarrassing situation. It also reflects an absence of collective thinking at the organisation level. In fact, in such cases, retractions do more harm than good to the party's image, as they almost seem like afterthoughts. As in the case of Mumbai MP Sanjay Nirupam, who said that his protest to bring down electricity tariffs in the city was not aimed at his party, but that he “just wants the common man of Mumbai to get electricity at cheaper rates”.
It is this constant imitation of the AAP formula that is worrying many in the party, who fear that it will not only show the party in a pusillanimous light, but also bring ridicule to the Congress and Rahul Gandhi. A senior leader lightheartedly says that first AAP was called the Congress' B-Team, and “now, we are called the B-Team of AAP”.
However, Congress general secretary Ambika Soni denies that the Congress is following the AAP footprint. “Our party has always stood for certain values,” he says. “Even Sonia ji and Rahul ji advise the government on certain issues, so what is wrong if some Mumbai MPs are doing it?”
Intriguingly, some political analysts read into this a clever ploy by the Congress, perhaps the only Congress strategy they feel about that way. Says Jyotirmaya Sharma, professor of Political Science at the University of Hyderabad, “The Congress is trying to neutralise the AAP effect by excessively complying with their ideas.” Sharma also adds that the Congress has always believed in thinking short-term rather than long-term and the present situation fits in that scheme of things.
However, for Sharma to be proven true, it would mean that the strategy has been well thought out, discussed and only then implemented at various levels. But, such incidents are proof of anything but that. The challenge for young urban leaders like Deora is that there is no clear-cut party line on most issues. As a result, most of them pick issues they think will benefit them in 2014. They try to stick with the basic political philosophy of the party, but in every other way, they innovate. In the process, some MPs pick intelligent issues, while some just shoot from the hip. In the latter case, the Congress machinery is found wanting in giving them guidance. In this melee, the cadre gets demoralised.
As a matter of fact, many senior Congress leaders are riled with the AAP effect on the party. According to sources, the party's decision to support the AAP government in Delhi did not find favour with the Delhi MLAs. It was Shakeel Ahmed, general secretary in-charge of Delhi, who floated the idea, which later gathered wind. Even before Arvind Kejriwal could take oath as chief minister, party general secretary Janardhan Dwivedi had said that there were two points of view within the Congress on supporting AAP. This sent the rumour mills into a tizzy, with speculations that the Congress would pull out at the last minute. The fact that it was Dwivedi, the most reticent of the Congress' office-bearers who had made the statement, made things worse to a point that he was ultimately forced to set the record straight.
A lesser known fact is that former Delhi chief minister Sheila Dikshit had also declined all entitlements due to a former CM. After the polls, when Delhi Lieutenant Governor Najeeb Jung offered to move a file so that Dikshit could be given all entitlements and benefits accruing to a former CM, she turned him down and instead decided to move into a house next to her daughter's in Delhi.
Another reason why it's difficult to subscribe to the view that all this is part of a grand Congress design is the many other issues facing the party. Recently, a delegation of Congress MPs, including Mahabal Mishra, Sanjay Nirupam and Sandeep Dikshit, had gone to meet Union Petroleum Minister Veerappa Moily. As the minister was too busy at the time, the meeting could not take place. This gave rise to murmurs within the party that the senior leadership was simply not interested in what others had to say. One MP said that a Congress minister was not paying heed to the genuine concerns of his own party's MPs.
The delegates had gone to meet Moily to address the growing clamour for increasing the number of subsidised LPG cylinders in a year from nine to 12 and to arrest the frequent increase in fuel prices. Many leaders in the delegation said on condition of anonymity that the Manmohan Singh government is only interested in protecting the interests of the oil companies, while the common man and the political interests of the Congress are of no concern to them. Three days after this incident, the petroleum minister said that the proposal to increase subsidised gas cylinders to 12 a year would be implemented soon.
More evidence of this disconnect can be seen in the fact that the party is not particularly happy with the functioning of its crown jewel, the National Advisory Council (NAC). Headed by Congress president Sonia Gandhi with eminent personalities from civil society and other areas as its members, the purpose of the NAC was to push the people's agenda. According to party functionaries, despite the NAC, the Congress governments failed to effectively read the people's mood and this hurt them most in the Assembly elections.
The Direct Benefit Transfer (DBT) is almost an extension of this disconnect, something most state Congress leaders were not too particularly keen on. A Union minister even used all his political might to stop the DBT from rolling out in his constituency. The policy, seen as a brainchild of non-political people who wield major influence in the UPA, has proven to be an encumbrance to many local-level politicians. Particularly in rural India, where banking services are not easily available to people, these politicians reason, how can the government deposit money in their accounts?
Senior ministers have reportedly conveyed in meetings with Sonia and Rahul Gandhi that the DBT should be rolled back with immediate effect. Their logic is that politically, this measure is not yielding them anything; conversely, it could even be earning them ill-will. They say that the common man is only interested at how much he is paying for a commodity in the market and not how much money the government is depositing in his account for that commodity.
There is a growing chasm between the party and the Congress governments in the states. Delhi was a classic example where the then chief minister Sheila Dikshit and the then president of the Pradesh Congress Committee (PCC) JP Agarwal fought on every possible issue. A similar situation exists in Haryana and Maharashtra. Thankfully for the Congress, after the drubbing in the Assembly polls in December 2013, the party seems to have learnt some lessons and is taking steps to fill this chasm. As a first step, the PCC chief in all these states have been changed and the baton has been handed to leaders who command some authority. While Sachin Pilot has been made the PCC chief of Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh has seen Arun Yadav take over the helm. Yadav, an MP from Khandwa, is the son of former Madhya Pradesh deputy chief minister Subhash Yadav, and has worked closely with Rahul Gandhi as secretary of the AICC. In fact, both Yadav and Pilot have the Congress vice-president's ear and would find it easy to coordinate things better between the high command and the party's state unit.
In Haryana too, incumbent Chief Minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda has been running a tight ship, but there are serious fissures, with Union minister Kumari Selja pulling on one side and former AICC general secretary Birendra Singh on the other. The central leadership has sent the message to stop this infighting, as it fears this too could spiral into a disaster in the run-up to 2014. Haryana PCC chief Phoolchand Maulana says that it is necessary that “the government and the party should work in coordination. For this, we have constituted a coordination committee. I will also take a feedback from blocks and districts and pass it on to the government. We should propagate the good work done by the government”.
The leadership is also mulling over a plan to start a door-to-door campaign to promote the programmes of the UPA government. The Congress feels that the government is the vehicle to carry out the organisation's policies. The Block Congress Committee will have party cadres approaching all the houses in a particular block. They will be armed with all the information about the work and policies of the government and how they have changed the common man's life. The District Congress Committee, in turn, will keep a watch on these activities. Finally, a report will go to the general secretary in-charge of the state.
On paper, this sounds like a good idea, politically astute and if executed well, guaranteed to get results. But, it would require a buoyed and strong cadre, which as discussed earlier, is already proving to be a tough ask for the Congress in many states.
The senior leadership is all too aware of this and perhaps that is why murmurs of forging alliances with other parties are growing loud. A senior minister even warns against underestimating the power of alliances that the Congress could sew up. Seemingly, Rahul Gandhi too is keen on the idea. After being released on bail in the fodder scam case, RJD supremo Lalu Prasad Yadav met the Congress vice-president. Both parties are sending positive feelers to each other, with Lalu openly admitting that his party did not give the required number of seats to the Congress in the 2009 Lok Sabha election.
Interestingly, LJP supremo Ram Vilas Paswan has also met Congress president Sonia Gandhi. A mega alliance in Bihar will consolidate the vote for the UPA in both Bihar and Jharkhand. The alliance with the NCP in Maharashtra stays for the Lok Sabha polls. According to party sources, the Congress is also hopeful that some understanding will be reached with the BSP in Uttar Pradesh. Although Satish Mishra of the BSP has denied any talks with the Congress, sources say that the party is just playing hard-to-get, as it wants a nationwide alliance as well as seats in states like Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh and Punjab. Political pundits predict that a BSP-Congress alliance in Uttar Pradesh has the potential to completely change the dynamics of the upcoming General Election.
The Congress also realises that it has not been able to manage the media well in the past three years and has failed to bring to the fore the work it has done. On various occasions, it is found wanting in the print, electronic and social media. A Group of Ministers on Media, a change in the chairman of the Media Committee of the Congress as well as a change of the Information and Broadcasting Minister could do little to change the party's image. One of the many complaints by the Congress cadre is that the party has failed to adequately present its political and legitimate view on the national and even the local media. In fact, Milind Deora, Union minister and MP from south Mumbai, admits that though “we are reaching out to people, we need to fine-tune our media strategies”. The party has decided to add more young spokespersons to put across the Congress view. Five Central ministers will be designated to answer all questions before the media. This media overhaul is all set to begin after the AICC session on 17 January in Delhi, and all the achievements of the government will be displayed from a common man's perspective.
In fact, the AICC session was also supposed to be where the Congress would announce Rahul Gandhi as the prime ministerial candidate, but that for now, does not seem likely. The senior leadership knows that the party's fortune is now oscillating between a resurgent BJP under Narendra Modi and an AAP on the upswing. As elections near, a lot will depend on how the Congress strikes the fine balance between these two factors, otherwise it could very well be looking at political oblivion.
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