From Rane to Gogoi: Congress implodes due to anti-Rahul rebellion

New Delhi: Sonia Gandhi’s efforts to cap any simmering anger brewing in the Congress against the uninspiring leadership of her son Rahul Gandhi has blown up in the party’s face. Starting from Assam to Maharashtra, Jammu and Kashmir, West Bengal, Jharkhand and Haryana, senior leaders have raised the banner of revolt and are even deserting the party. In most cases, their’s is a double barreled attack: the incumbent state leadership, especially Tarun Gogoi in Assam and Prithviraj Chavan in Maharashtra are in the immediate line of fire, but the real target is Rahul, who has been backing the two chief ministers despite loud demands for a change of guard in these states.

On Monday, Himanta Biswa Sarma stepped down as education and health minister of Assam, and to intensify the pressure on the party, he took 31 of the Congress’s 77 legislators when he went to submit his resignation to Governor JB Patnaik.

In Maharashtra, sulking senior leader Narayan Rane quit as industries minister because he did not want to be a “partner” in the party’s defeat in the upcoming assembly elections in the state. His long and unsuccessful bid to be chief minister and his son’s loss in the Lok Sabha elections has left the man – who has a base in the Konkan region of the state – with virtually no options.

Both he and Sarma are in the Congress for now but it is only a matter of time before they quit the party and set up their own outfits or join up with other parties unless Sonia is able to resolve the crisis. Even if she succeeds in reining them in this time, there are chances of another eruption any time.

In Jammu and Kashmir, where the National Conference has called off its six year alliance with the Congress, former MP Lal Singh has walked out of the party which, he believes, has treated him shabbily by denying him a parliamentary ticket.

In Haryana, veteran leader Chaudhary Birendra Singh has been having a running battle with chief minister BS Hooda and is likely to cross over to the BJP. In West Bengal, three Congress legislators have switched their loyalty to the Trinamool Congress, taking the total of such defections since 2011 to seven and reducing the party’s legislative strength from 42 to 35. Earlier this month, former minister Radhakrishna Kishore in the Jharkhand government left the party alleging there was no democracy in the Congress.

The exit of some of these leaders may be timed with the assembly elections expected in October-November in Maharashtra, Haryana, Jammu and Kashmir, and Jharkhand. Delhi too may be added to the list. Since state polls in West Bengal and Assam are due in 2016, the Congress may think it has time in hand to deal with the situation. But that hope may turn out to be misplaced because of all that happened in Guwahati on Monday could lead to the collapse of the Gogoi government, unless Sonia is able to salvage the situation rapidly spinning out of control. Indeed, Sonia had reportedly agreed to the dissidents’ demand for a change of guard in Assam but had to give in to Rahul who wanted Gogoi to stay on.

Officially, the party claims that the current spate of resignations is not directed against Rahul. But ask any Congress leader and he/she will privately admit that the recent developments are a sign of increasing no-confidence against the Congress vice president and that the implosion taking place in the party is “very, very serious.”

But a more severe crisis awaits the party after the state polls if the Congress is wiped out in Maharashtra, Haryana, Jammu and Kashmir, Jharkhand, and Delhi where there were reports of some Congress legislators wanting to support the BJP in forming a government.

“That is the time when the real desertions will start and people will raise their voice against Rahul by making loud demands for Priyanka. They desperately want her to lead the party,” said a senior leader.

In fact, it has been so difficult to contain such a revolt that Sonia had stepped forward to take the blame for the party’s disastrous performance in the Lok Sabha polls which left it with only 44 seats in the 545-member Lok Sabha. Her offer of resignation – like that of Rahul’s – was rejected by the Working Committee, lest BJP leader and now Narendra Modi’s slogan of “Congress mukt Bharat” come true.  Sonia then went about meeting leaders to get a sense of the reasons for the debacle and passed on the task of preparing the report to loyalist AK Antony who is reportedly identifying every other factor for the defeat barring one—namely, Rahul’s insipid and uninspiring leadership. The entire fact-finding exercise was to ensure that any brewing resentment against Rahul was diluted.

“Antony was given the task to ensure that any incipient rebellion was contained,” admitted a party functionary. But clearly the attempt to cap it has failed, with senior party leaders either deserting or resigning.

Congress spokesman Abhishek Singhvi may have tried to explain away Sarma and Rane’s rebellion as a sign of their “personal ambitions”, which the party cannot accommodate. But the fact remains that a crisis has been simmering for long in these states – as well as in other states – which the party did not address.

Take the case of Maharashtra where a demand of chief ministership was repeatedly being made even before the Lok Sabha polls. And after the elections, in which the Congress won only two seats, even the NCP, the party’s ally, had warned that going into the assembly elections under Chavan’s leadership would damage their electoral prospects. After wavering on the issue for several days, the Congress leadership finally decided not to effect any change either in Maharashtra or in Haryana since it made no sense to do so barely few weeks before the polls. That decision may now prove costly. The Congress is already on the backfoot, fighting incumbency and allegations of lack of decision making in government, and if some of its senior leaders quit ahead of the polls, the party could find itself in deep trouble, notwithstanding arguments that Rane’s influence even in the Konkan region has been declining.

The brave front it has put on aside, the Congress has real reason to worry that the state leaders have begun to defy and question the decision of the high command. There are apprehensions that the example set by them could be followed by the disgruntled sections in other state units. Should that happen, it would spell the endgame for the Congress and Rahul.

But then Sonia and Rahul are to be blamed for this. In the normal course after the kind of defeat the Congress suffered, any other outfit would have plunged headlong into a frenetic exercise of trying to reinvent the party and remove its shortcomings and weaknesses to prevent the kind of eruptions of anger and defiance that are now taking place. However, there was no sign of such activity in the Congress; there has been no brainstorming session and no fixing of accountability even as despondent workers despaired about their future. Instead, the 129-year old party chose to slip into a semi-comatose state, hoping that time and the Antony committee report would ease the agony of the defeat.

The party needs to heed the advice given by former West Bengal state unit chief and senior legislator Manas Bhuniya in the context of the desertions in his state: “We need introspection and discussion on why they are going. It is possibly stemming from a feeling among these leaders as there is no future in the Congress—both political and personal.”

He has possibly hit the nail on the head.