Despite cross-country hut hopping by the heir apparent Rahul Gandhi and charm offensive by his sister Priyanka, the voters chose to bring non-Congress alliances to power.
The emphatic defeat for the 127-year-old party has been in the national capital, where the BJP swept to power in the local body elections.
Long has the era passed when the public tended to forgive and forget or get swayed by the personal charisma of Congress leaders. Uttar Pradesh voters refused to buy the ‘yuvraj’s’ charm offensive of mingling with the crowds and dining at Dalit huts.
For all the efforts that Rahul put in, the party was reduced to the fourth place after SP, BSP and BJP. Even the last-moment marriage of convenience with the RLD failed to draw the caste votes to the party.
Another area where the party keeps getting beaten black and blue is its alliances with regional parties — the most glaring example being that with West Bengal. Stuck with Mamata for meeting the magic numbers in Lok Sabha, the Congress is constantly humiliated without ‘mamta’ at the Centre and state.
She blocked a river water sharing deal with Bangladesh, got a sensible Railway minister sacked, is blocking several key policies in segments such as FDI and counter-terrorism. The latest whimsical threat was a 15-day deadline to the Centre to waive the state’s debt to the tune of Rs22,000 crore.
In Tamil Nadu too, the picture is not much different. The Centre’s hands are tied on ties with Sri Lanka owing to pressure from the state’s two major parties, the DMK and the AIADMK.
The Congress is perceived as weak because of its failure to get even the UPA allies on board regarding key policies. Key areas such as legal reforms, disinvestment, FDI, counter-terrorism, anti-graft law and police reforms have been languishing without policy commitments.
The constant announcements of new policies and subsequent volte-face due to pressure from allies have hit the credibility of the party. Massive cases of fraud at the Centre running into lakhs of crores of rupees have definitely put the party on the back foot.
When senior party leader and telecom minister Kapil Sibal said the loss to the government in 2G spectrum auction was ‘zero’, whereas the CAG put it at Rs1.76 lakh crore, it came as a shock even to the Opposition.
Maybe the firebrand Supreme Court lawyer has forgotten that gone are the days when an elephant in the room would not be seen by the public.
The infighting in state units and lack of party discipline has left the party in a lurch. While loose cannons like Digvijay Singh go on the warpath firing salvos at anything that moves and manages to capture his fancy, senior leadership is forced to do the damage control.
The party’s inability to make its leaders toe its line is threatening the survival of its government in Andhra Pradesh. The Congress has been forced to swallow its pride and take the help of its rivals in Parliament to suspend eight of its MPs from Parliament as they refused to obey party directives and stalled the House demanding for a separate Telangana state.
An organisation is usually able to tide over crises when there is clarity regarding leadership and a vision for the future. In the case of Congress, there is a lot of ambiguity surrounding leadership. With the scion Rahul failing to sway votes and shying away from any executive post, the focus has shifted to Priyanka.
However, Congress president Sonia Gandhi hasn’t cleared the air about who is going to take over the party reins. For all the reform and internal democracy Rahul has been championing, the party is still practicing nepotism and favouritism in selecting its low- and middle-rung leaders — and the lack of quality is showing in its poll performances.
India’s oldest party has a Herculean task of cleaning its Augean Stables. If it fails to put its house in order, it will share the fate of several dynasties that had their share of glory before becoming extinct.
(This article was published as the editorial column in Postnoon on April 25, 2012)
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