'Unmaking of Congress by Naya Congress': Grand old party faces identity crisis after poll losses

This was yet another year of the unpleasant ordeal of electoral defeats for the Congress, with reversals in Delhi and Bihar assembly polls - following the 2024 assembly poll defeats in Haryana and Maharashtra - further clouding the glimmer of hope brought by the partial recovery in the last Lok Sabha elections. This presented new tasks for Congress, including handling the unease within the INDIA bloc.

But, more than the electoral setbacks, what concerns the dyed-in-the-wool Congress faithful is the steady metamorphosis of the grand old party into an unfamiliar entity. This fallout of the de facto leader Rahul Gandhi's experiments, carried out at the behest of 'imported ideas' of inflowing fortune-seekers and freelance advisors devoid of the Congress DNA, have started showing.

A Case Study


The Bihar election was a case-study in 'the making of a naya Congress' and its consequences. In the second major north Indian state Congress lost to Mandal and Kamandal politics decades ago, Gandhi, pumped up by a group of 'neo-Congress' elements and some outside advisors, including some who thrived in RSS/BJP-mobilised Anna Hazare movement to ambush the Congress, hit the road advocating the cause of backward castes and caste census.

While Gandhi positioned himself as a social justice champion, it had two spillovers: One, ally RJD felt the Team Rahul was wooing the former's 'Mandal/social justice plank' rather than fighting the BJP; two, Bihar Congress' remaining supporters among the upper caste and Dalits were ill at ease with Gandhi's aggressive OBC pitch. After all the rhetoric, the Congress list gave the largest share to upper caste candidates, making it a classic experiment of falling between the two stools in quest of a 'naya Congress'.

Bihar also showcased how Gandhi feels more at home with the "neo-Congress" persons than the traditional Congress functionaries.

A political greenhorn Krishna Allavaru, who started his corporate career with shaadi.com before he and Gandhi discovered each other, and he landed the job of handling the Youth Congress, was brought in as AICC in-charge Bihar.

Many say Allavaru consciously spoke chaste Hindi, focused on surveys and kept seasoned Bihar Congress leaders at an arm's length in the hope that this would help him master Bihar politics and deal with Lalu-Tejaswi's RJD.

Along with Allavaru, CPI deserter Kanhaiya Kumar and Independent MP Pappu Yadav emerged as core influences on Congress management of Bihar election and RJD. What this did was to reduce seasoned Congress leaders to mere spectators. What followed was for all to see - the mid-election rift with RJD, Congress' campaign planks shrinking to 'SIR and vote chori' issue and finally, the debilitating defeat.

Flip-flop approach

Many see a pattern in Gandhi's flip-flop approach. Before he discovered mandal-caste census planks, it was the spirit of 'Abhay Mudra' in true 'janeu dhari Shiv Bhakt' mode that Gandhi was convinced of his calling to repackage Congress. Before that, he had romanticised being a "casteless Indian".

RISE OF 'OUTSIDERS'

These flip-flops, to many in the Congress, also demonstrate Gandhi's elasticity in matters of political faith and conviction while seeking electoral redemption. While this streak worries original Congress insiders, this very characteristic also endears Gandhi to the canny outsiders who want to latch onto him to enter the party and elbow out the original Congress leaders. This, many Congress functionaries feel, explains why Rahul, of late, has more supporters among the Delhi-based once anti-Congress circles of Leftists, activists, 'socialists' and NGOs, most of whom are bereft of their old platforms and are in search of a new perch. These circles' praise for Gandhi is often incomplete without criticisms of traditional Congress leaders while underscoring how Gandhi and the Congress need to be 'helped' towards a new direction. This not-so-concealed sense that Gandhi and, through him, Congress are up for grabs, is something that is increasingly making the original Congress insiders concerned and restless.

Already many 'outsiders' have found plum posts in the AICC establishment. Anil Jaihind, once in the Janta Dal lot, was made chairman of the party's OBC cell. Rajendra Gautam, the sacked AAP minister, is now head of the SC cell. CPI deserter Kanhaiya Kumar was made in-charge of NSUI even before he unlearnt his AISF ways. Ex-BJP MP Udit Raj heads the party's unorganised workers' cell. Urdu 'shayar' Imran Pratapgarhi became head of AICC minority department and a Rajya Sabha member after he marked his entry into Congress by losing deposit in the election. Former bureaucrat K Raju is now the national convenor, overseeing AICC cells of ST-ST-OBC. In all these cases, traditional Congressis were ejected to make way for the 'neo Congressis'.

More such aspirants are in the queue, some even eying Rajya Sabha berths.

'Jai Jagat' clique

Adding to that is the emergence of 'Jai Jagat' clique within Congress, a group of AICC functionaries including outside recruits comprising among others Sachin Rao, Meenakshi Natarajan, Allavaru and Harshvardhan Sapkal, who project themselves as more Gandhian than the original products of the Congress school and preach universalism.

These brands of often laptop-driven Team Rahul members, many feel, are trying to brew a 'naya Congress' by shedding party's original instincts, faiths and thrusts, and repositioning the party rather ill fittingly, as a fusion of 'neo Mandalite', old-fashioned Left and NGO pattern. This has caused a flux within the party leading to confusion and rifts beneath the bluster of the daily dose of official anti-government soundbites and tweets.

'Doon boys club' moment

Many traditional Congress leaders, across the generational divide, even while routinely showing their loyalty to Gandhi in the system of nomination-based appointments, are increasingly ill at ease with these attempts to create a 'naya Congress'. They feel the 'imported' elements form a strange apolitical khichdi, and their push towards creating a 'naya Congress' are akin to what late Rajiv Gandhi's "Doon boys club" did to the Congress, at a cost.

'Priyanka project'

This unease, compounded by more electoral setbacks and unabated organisational and political drift, is also laying the ground for a 'Priyanka project', as a way 'to deal with' the uneasiness within the family-controlled party structure.

So, when Congress leaders have started increasingly praising Priyanka Gandhi Vadra despite her own sense of entitlement, dismal record in trying to revive the UP Congress and opting for the safety of Wayanad, it is seen more as an indirect disapproval of Rahul and his ways. The New Year is likely to see the 'naya Congress' pitch, and resistance to it, play out both overtly and covertly.