Seven signs that Congress is on the verge of a nervous breakdown

The last thing the Congress needs right now is to display a sense of doomed panic. But someone in India’s grand old party has not gotten the memo. Instead the party is nervously bumbling from one self-inflicted PR gaffe to another. Each measure to look in control seems more jittery than the previous. Here are seven tell-tale signs just from last week of a party that appears to be on the verge of a nervous breakdown. Find sand. Stick head in sand. In India, opinion polls have ended up with egg splattered over their face in spectacular disgrace. Many democratic countries have time limits on opinion polls. For example, France bans them a week before the actual polls. There is a debate to be had about methodology and transparency. But by opening this can of worms when its own numbers are tanking the Congress is looking like the emperor who does not want to admit that the world knows he’s not wearing any clothes. The more Digvijaya Singh says opinion polls “should be trashed. They have become a farce” the more people will think he is actually talking about the UPA government. [caption id=“attachment_1211195” align=“alignleft” width=“380”]  The Congress has to face up to the fact that it’s in a tough electoral fight. Reuters[/caption] Find mouth. Stick foot in. “When Modi finishes his rally, his cadre is buoyed,” a Congress leader told Tehelka on the grounds of anonymity. “When our leader finishes we scurry for cover.” Rahul’s propensity to put his foot-in-his-mouth especially when he is trying to be earnest is giving his party headaches. So while Modi is attacked on small points of history like a Chandragupta Maurya versus Chandragupta I, Rahul kicks up a hornets’ nest with botched comments about the ISI and Muzaffarnagar. Chandragupta mix-ups delight media pundits and quizmasters but is hardly an election issue. ISI and Muzaffarnagar, unfortunately, can easily be used as one. Find denial. Cling to denial. Lalalala. The party has clearly decided the best way to brazen out any signs of an approaching drubbing is to resolutely pretend it’s business as usual. Sheila Dikshit in her interview for Open magazine decides the best way to deal with the Arvind Kejriwal threat is to pretend there’s no threat at all. “(Kejriwal) is not even on our radar”, she says blithely. Dikshit should give off the confidence of a front-runner and not betray nervousness. But to pretend that Arvind Kejriwal does not even matter is a kind of willful arrogance. Surely, Dikshit is seeing the polls. Oh, sorry. The new Congress line is “No polls please, we are Congresspersons.” (See point 1). Find messenger. Shoot the messenger. When the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting issues an advisory to television channels that “constantly trying to compare the speech of the Hon’ble Prime Minister of India with the speech of other political leaders on 15th August 2013” is an attempt to “denigrate the Office of the Prime Minister of India” it results in unflattering headlines like “Modi-spooked govt deploys nanny.” Manmohan Singh is the Prime Minister. That gives him a bully pulpit unlike any other in the country. If despite that advantage, the government cries foul about comparisons, it just betrays the government’s nervousness. Comparisons are odious but in the face of an aggressive opponent, ducking from comparisons just appears pusillanimous or scaredy-cat. Find autopilot. Go on autopilot. Sonia Gandhi was never exactly the most visible and media-friendly Congress president. But at least there was no mistaking that she was in charge. Rahul, as the heir-apparent is just prone to what Tehelka describes as “scoot and shoot” maneuvers which leaves the party confused and directionless. As an incumbent, dogged with scandals, it’s already on the back foot. But the BJP has plenty of problems in its kitty. Instead of aggressively taking the party on the Congress under Rahul just seems to be on auto pilot. As Tehelka writes “Old structures are being dismantled, but no new ones have come up. No one knows who the Team Rahul Gandhi is; who make up his ‘war room’; who designs the strategies; who are they reaching out to within the party, the allies or the media; who even writes his speeches, does anyone even write them? Find talk show. Don’t go on talk show. The Congress’ disarray is clearly visible on talk shows. There are very few to mount a robust defence of the government. Ajay Maken who was appointed media head to get him out of the way as a possible contender to Sheila Dikhshit’s chair has struggled to assert control. Of 36 senior leaders he invited to the first meeting he convened on 12 showed up according to the media because he was “too junior”. “Most evenings on news channels, it is Meem Afzal versus Arun Jaitley or Sanjay Jha versus Ravishankar Prasad. Other than being butchered they can’t do much and if it is happening day after day, then it’s sending a very wrong signal to the party” a senior leader told Tehelka. Find CBI. Use CBI. The Brahmastra has always been the CBI. The Congress is already vulnerable to charges of using and misusing the CBI to keep the likes of Mulayam Singh Yadav and Mayawati in line. The news that the CBI is likely to name some BJP politicians in a supplementary chargesheet about the Ishrat Jahan encounter will predictably be greeted as more evidence of the party’s desperation. A senior CBI official told The Telegraph that they have zeroed in on some politicians based on “hard” evidence. “They do not have the courage to face Modi politically,” the BJP’s M Venkaiah Naidu told The Deccan Herald . “The government is surviving courtesy to the CBI.” But the Congress is struggling to face Modi because it cannot decide the best strategy to face him – acknowledge him or ignore him. In Jammu Ghulam Nabi Azad dismissed a “Modi wave” as a “media created wave.” “There is no Modi wave” he said emphatically. Days later UPA partner Omar Abdullah said while he would not call it a wave “it will be wrong on our part to deny any influence of Modi on the elections… There is an effect of Modi.” The Congress has to face up to the fact that it’s in a tough electoral fight. To admit that is not tantamount to throwing in the towel. But it’s one thing to project confidence to the voters. It’s another thing to run around like a chicken who has cut off its own head so it can pretend it does not know the sky is falling. Read the entire story of the Congress party’s disarray in Tehelka. Read Sheila Dikshit’s interview in Open Magazine.