If these 23 leaders are marginalised, what will the Congress be left with? They are well-meaning, bear no malice and certainly have not been kind to the BJP

An honest attempt by 23 senior leaders of the Congress to assess the reasons for the party’s steady decline over the last six years, and to present a plan for its revival, has been rebuffed by the Gandhis and the coterie surrounding them. This does not augur well for the party. 

While it has faced many internal dissensions and conflicts over personalities and policies, this is certainly the biggest existential crisis that it has faced in a long time because it has become rudderless and a sense of hopelessness has crept into the rank and file.  

Looking at the manner in which these voices were drowned in the last Congress Working Committee (CWC) meeting, it is clear that the Gandhis, who run the party as a private limited company, and their sycophants, will not allow honest introspection.

There is a set pattern to responses to calls for inner-party debate when a member of the Nehru-Gandhi family is at the helm. Such moves are seen as a revolt and any talk of collective leadership and inner-party elections is regarded as blasphemy. Then there are demands that are bandied about with the blessings of the family, when a member of the family is not the head of the party. These slogans were raised by family loyalists when PV Narasimha Rao, Sitaram Kesari and others were party presidents.

Going by this yardstick, the signatories to the letter to the Congress president have really done something that is sacrilegious because they seek internal debate and democracy when a Gandhi is at the helm. These senior leaders decided to abandon the Congress tradition of beating around the bush. Instead they did some straight talking, however bitter this may sound to the party president. Referring to the major reverses suffered by the party, the signatories said they had witnessed “a steady decline” of the Congress Party “reflected in successive electoral verdicts” in State and general elections in 2014 and 2019. They said “the reasons are manifold and need to be immediately identified. Otherwise, the Congress Party will find itself marginalised, both in the States, which is already apparent, as well as at the national level.”

Even more significant is the readiness of these signatories to do honest diagnosis and to search for answers and solutions. The letter bluntly tells the party president the truth about the worrying erosion of the party’s support base, specially among the youth. Analysing the party’s electoral performance since 2014, these leaders point out that over the last six years, India had added 187 million first-time voters. However, the Congress Party did not attract these voters because “the youth voted overwhelmingly for Modi and the BJP.” They pointed out that the voteshare of the BJP, which had slumped to just 78.40 million in 2009, rose sharply to 176 million in 2014 and 229 million in 2019. This was in sharp contrast to the performance of the Congress Party, which bagged 123 million votes in 2009 and was around this figure (119.40 million) in 2019.

However, despite this disastrous performance by the party, the signatories lament that the Congress Party “has not undertaken any honest introspection to analyse the reasons for the continued decline.” In other words, these leaders are saying that the lack of introspection  bodes ill for the future of the party.

The leaders have made a series of suggestions. They want a vigorous nation-wide membership drive and elections at all levels. Further, in view of the gravity of the challenges facing the party, it is “imperative” to urgently establish “an institutional leadership mechanism to collectively guide the party’s revival”. In other words, there is need for a collective leadership at this juncture. Just dominance of a single family will not do.

These are suggestions that are coming from well-meaning leaders of the party and there is no malice. How can the party take exception to the suggestions made in this letter? Also, they have not said this because they are pro-BJP as alleged initially. None of these leaders have in the past shown any fascination for Narendra Modi or the BJP.

But the Nehru-Gandhis have always shunned internal debate. On May 15, 1999, Purno Sangma, Sharad Pawar and Tariq Anwar raised some important questions at a meeting of the CWC. There was a raging debate about Ms Sonia Gandhi’s citizenship status at that time and that was the central issue in the Lok Sabha election. Mr Sangma directly asked her to clarify as to whether she had dual citizenship of India and Italy. He said he was putting this question to her in order to know the facts so that party workers across the country could quash the rumours being spread by the party’s opponents. Ms Gandhi refused to answer the question. Instead she resigned as party president, forcing the party to dismiss Pawar, Sangma and Anwar from the party. The National Democratic Alliance (NDA) led by Atal Bihari Vajpayee won that election comfortably.  The Congress Party’s vote share in that election was 28.30 per cent. In 2019, this dropped to 19.50 per cent.

Coming back to the present, if these 23 leaders are marginalised, what will the Congress be left with? Among those who have been identified by the media as signatories to this letter are Ghulam Nabi Azad, Veerappa Moily, PJ Kurien, Anand Sharma, Bhupinder Singh Hooda, Kapil Sibal and Prithviraj Chavan.

PJ Kurien joined the Congress in his student days in 1959 and can claim 60 years of association with the party. He has been in Parliament since 1980. Veerappa Moily became a Congress MLA in Karnataka in 1972 and has been a staunch Congressman for 50 years. Ghulam Nabi Azad’s association with the Congress is of similar vintage, having become secretary of a block Congress committee in 1973.

It is sad to see the intentions of individuals like Moily, Azad and Kurien, to name a few, who have spent a lifetime in the party, being doubted. At this rate, their attempts to revive the party will just be a cry in the wilderness and the Congress will continue to shrink and lose its relevance.

The response of Sonia Gandhi, Rahul and Priyanka to these developments does not augur well for the Congress. The signatories to the letter constitute sane, sincere, credible voices. By rebuffing them, the Gandhis are taking the party further into the mire. This will have tragic consequences for the Congress and, more importantly, for Indian democracy. 

(The writer is an author specialising in democracy studies. Views expressed are personal)