The grand old party must get over its electoral defeats and be decisive, not static, about its future. Time is up

Meditation is good to seek clarity in chaos and get a grip of things. Congress scion Rahul Gandhi has a healthy habit of retreating into vipassana camps now and then. Except that there are enough vipassana centres in India and he didn’t need to go all the way to Cambodia for inspiration and renew his sense of moral purpose. Besides, meditation is supposed to strengthen karma yoga and as a slightly privileged party worker, he is yet to take any action of consequence. Shell-shocked by the disastrous outing in the Lok Sabha elections five months ago, the Congress is yet to snap out of trauma and at least be true to its grain of acting and behaving like a national party. Rahul may have read the message against dynastic entitlement and taken moral responsibility but without a proper handing over of the reins or even encouraging the cadres, he is being seen as a quitter who couldn’t take the good with the bad. At least for a party that has been erected with a feudal architecture, the least he could do was chaperone the much-needed organisational elections. Weeks before the Assembly elections in Haryana and Maharashtra, the State units are riven by dissension despite firefighting measures by interim party president Sonia Gandhi, who is essentially acting as a bridge between the old and the new brigades.  Fearing the crumbled dust of legacy, she is holding on to old methods of placating family retainers and core loyalists, even if they are out of sync with political reality. The party is in a limbo and while some like Shashi Tharoor have been airing concerns, even seniors like Salman Khurshid have said that the internecine struggles may not “ensure its own future.” He was bold enough to admit that the leader had left the party in a huff. A key Rahul coterie member, Jyotiraditya Scindia, too, felt that it was high time for introspection and survival strategies.

It would seem like a rebellion is in the works with the young Turks and the old hawks ranged against each other and Rahul’s retreat before crucial Assembly polls is being interpreted as his ultimatum for relevance of his own people. Politically though, this distancing between the mother and son may be deliberate, both retaining their primacy in separate groups rather than jousting over one. So Sonia is continuing to manage the burden of legacy. Assuaging the old hawks, who have grown by virtue of their unswerving loyalty to the party and feel that they are now entitled to a chance at the wheel, she is hoping to neutralise their destructive potential by appearing to stand by them. Already, she has treaded middle ground by appointing the most acceptable senior hand Ahmed Patel as head of poll coordination committee. Even if the radical youths do decide to break away, which also has a precedent in Congress tradition, they can look at a rebuild minus the deadwood and virtually emerge as a newer identity. Nuking an old order in the Congress is also something that political observers have been harping on. If Rahul succeeds, the new entity would automatically become legitimate. This explains why his men are creating trouble in both Haryana and Maharashtra. Sonia gave in to the threatening and burly ways of senior leader Bhupinder Singh Hooda in Haryana, sacrificing Rahul’s man and former State unit chief Ashok Tanwar. The latter is now up in arms, undercutting the party’s chances. Revolt is brewing in Maharashtra with the party losing members through a sieve. In Madhya Pradesh, the Jyotiraditya Scindia camp is already upping the pressure to lead the State unit. Same is the case with Sachin Pilot in Rajasthan. There are rumours of the former joining the BJP and the latter floating an independent unit. Question is whether Rahul and Priyanka, if she is allowed, have the charisma and the political will to chase a new dream in their middling years. Their grandmother Indira was better placed when she split the party; she had caught the imagination of both the people and cadres. Besides, she had a pan-India matrix to work with; the party is now a tattered existence, virtually decimated in States. Besides, whether Rahul likes it or not, his group comprises dedicated but elitist youth with an idealist mindset, which may not be enough to deal with the rough and tumble of grassroots politics, something that the old guard claims a patent on. However, in keeping with the rest of aspirant India, ambition is bubbling over in the grand old party and old style reconciliation or the matriarch’s benign shadow won’t do it any good. The party needs a breakout moment.