Moment of truth for 'Sonia Congress': Can’t be business-as-usual

By Sanjaya Baru

Election campaigns in parliamentary India have been presidential for some time now. The results of the just-concluded elections to the state assemblies of
Assam, Bengal, Kerala, Tamil Nadu and Puducherry underscore the point. While vote banks and manifestos play their part and the ability and enthusiasm of the cadre are important, a large number of voters, especially the so-called ‘swing’ voters, vote their preferred leaders to power.

That is the simple lesson that Narendra Modi forced his party to learn in 2013, by seeking the exit of the old guard led by LK Advani. In 2014, the electorate chose Narendra Modi over Rahul Gandhi, just as in 2009 the vote was for Manmohan Singh over Advani.

This week’s election results reinforce this argument. In West Bengal, the vote was for Mamata Banerjee just as in Tamil Nadu it was for J Jayalalithaa. In Assam, the BJP learnt the lesson taught in Bihar and Delhi and named its chief ministerial candidate. The CPM succeeded in Kerala in holding on to its loyal voters by projecting 92-year old VS Achuthanandan as its chief ministerial candidate. Its victory, however, was also on account of the fact that the Congress yielded ground to the BJP. In West Bengal, the CPM needs a leader to stand up to Mamata. That will take time.

It was the received wisdom among most political commentators at the beginning of this year that the assembly elections of 2016 are unlikely to be game-changers in national politics. That, after Bihar in 2015 the next big one is Uttar Pradesh in 2017. Those assumptions have gone awry. Not only has the ‘Bihar strategy’, of forming an alliance with another party to retain relevance, not yielded any dividends for the Congress, but serious questions about the future of the party are being raised.

Psephologists may continue to analyse the details of the assembly election results but political analysts should not miss the woods for the trees. The Sonia Congress can comfort itself by drawing attention to the role of provincial factors in determining the electoral outcome, and insist that these results will have no impact on the standing of the party’s national leadership. But, the fact is that the Congress party’s moment of truth has arrived.

Does the party wish to remain a ‘Sonia Congress’, with little hope in the future, given that neither Rahul Gandhi nor Priyanka Vadra have demonstrated any talent that appeals to the average Congress member? Or is there anyone in the wider ‘Congress Parivar’, so to speak, who can breathe life into a moribund Indian National Congress?

India’s oldest political party requires a new lease of life. While the BJP may seek a ‘Congress-mukt India’ and Modi may return to power in 2019, India needs a second national party. Our democracy cannot be run on the motivations of caste-based and sectarian parties. If the Congress wishes to regain its elan as a truly pan-Indian, national party it can no longer be business-as-usual in the party.

The question is, who can and who will take the lead? Perhaps Sonia Gandhi can give a call to all those who began their political life in the Congress to come together, elect a new leadership and take the party forward. A re-energised Mamata Banerjee may boost Congress morale if she is made President of a newly reconstituted Indian National Congress. The likes of Sharad Pawar, GK Vasan, Jaganmohan Reddy and so on should be re-inducted.

It will mean the end of the ‘family and coterie’ based management of party’s affairs, and a return to where the party was in the early 1990s. It may take a decade for the new INC to regain power. But at least there would be some hope left for Congress loyalists.Sanjaya Baru