Ambush of the scions: Congress' genetic problem has no easy answer

Forget about fighting a rampaging Narendra Modi or the BJP; the Congress is at war with itself and Congress president Sonia Gandhi and vice chief Rahul Gandhi do not appear to be in a position to stop it. Indeed, the party’s disciplinary committee has become all but redundant as leaders freely take on each other and their bosses. There are multiple layers at which this internecine battle is being fought and new levels and chapters are being added to it each day. There is already a battle between the old guard and Rahul’s team. And following the serial debacle that started with the 2013 assembly polls to the Lok Sabha elections and the Haryana and Maharasthra state polls, the top leadership of the party is  increasingly coming under attack. For instance, Janardan Dwivedi’s call for a retirement age  was interpreted as a message that the old guard would not like to work under Rahul or Digvijaya Singh’s political diagnosis. It also sent the message that  Rahul lacks the temperament of a leader and has lost the war of perception to Modi or a clutch of junior AICC secretaries fronting for Rahul, issuing a diktat to their seniors to shut up and not air their views in public. New offensive The latest addition to this multi-layered internal battle is the one unleashed by Karti Chidambaram, the son of the former finance minister P Chidambaram who lashed out at the party’s high command that does not give any leeway to state units to evolve. Kariti’s is a case of Rahul’s youth brigade cracking up and one in which the son hits out with greater passion and the father in a more gentle but equally stinging manner. Chidambaram obliquely questioned Sonia and Rahul’s inaction in the face of adversity and the Amethi MP’s leadership when he recently said both Sonia and Rahul need to e interact more with the media and the masses and set a time table for reorganizing the party into an effective opposition. He predicted that a non-Gandhi could one day head the party and seemed to question Rahul’s leadership by underlining that Sonia was numero uno and the move to make the Amethi MP vice president was ‘perhaps the correct decision.’ [caption id=“attachment_1779671” align=“alignleft” width=“380”]  Rahul and Sonia Gandhi. Reuters.[/caption] Karti’s attack was doubly ironical. For one, he is a product of the high command culture which fielded him from Sivaganga when his father—known for his proximity to the high command—refused to contest the Lok Sabha elections, inviting criticism that he was running away from certain defeat. And two, because he was his father’s son, he was spared the rod that would otherwise have come down heavily on anyone who dares to question the fountainhead of the party. Not surprisingly, former minister and spokesperson of the day on Friday, Salman Khurshid beat around the bush when he was grilled on Karti’s outburst against the high command—a synonym in the Congress lexicon for Sonia and Rahul. Discriminatory treatment Much like it has done in the case of Karti, the Congress has tended to soft pedal on the misdemeanors of other progenies of famous families as well as of seniors who have ambushed the high command while lesser leaders like those from Kerala or Rajasthan who derided Rahul as a “joker’’ have been shown the door, thereby making a mockery of its disciplinary committee. It remains to be seen if Karti would be made an example to stem this time. The first to take on the fountainhead after the party’s disastrous performance in the Lok Sabha elections was Milind Deora, son of Congress leader Murli Deora. Both Deoras were closes to the Gandhi family. Since Milind was part of Rahul’s charmed circle, his outburst shocked the party, more so because he slammed not only Rahul’s advisors who he alleged had no clue about the ground reality but also took a huge swipe at those who took their advice. In between Milind and Karti, both of whom lost the Lok Sabha polls, there have been a host of scions of other well known Congress parents who have not hesitated to slam the party they have sauntered into by virtue of their surname. Take the case of Priya Dutt who lost the elections and publicly railed at the manner in which tickets were distributed. Indeed, many would believe that when the younger pedigreed lot hits out, they are also doing so at the behest of their parent who might have for the moment chosen to remain quiet. But what should worry Rahul is that while the seniors have never been happy with what they believe are ill-conceived attempts of democraticising and broadbasing the party’s frontal organizations, even the youngsters who were considered part of his team are not hesitating to hit out. Bonded by ancestry, not principles But then many of these young ones, are bonded with him or the party not because of principles or ideologies but because of their respective and recognizable ancestries. “It is the party’s fault that it has inducted such youngsters, given them pride of place and celebrated them. For every Meenakshi Natarajan who has emerged by her hard work there are half a dozen who have paratrooped because of their family name,’’ said a senior Congress leader. According to him, the aspirations of children of netas are markedly different from those who work their way up in the party through hard work. “The former wants everything on the platter. They may win because they have the resources, including that of a family name, but do they connect with the party workers or with the people at large? Do they have the staying power to stand up and fight for the party when the chips are down? It is the youngsters who struggle. They are the real face of the party,’’ he said. This would also apply to progenies provided they are willing to start from a scratch, especially at this time when the party needs to reform itself if it has to revive. Genetic disorder? But therein perhaps lies the core of all the Congress’s woes today. What is being said about the children with well known surnames would apply equally to Rahul. He has often admitted that the position he occupies is because of his genes. But now that the party is down and virtually out, is he willing to start from  scratch, put in the hard work that a grassroots Congress worker does often without any reward or recognition? Can he stop playing hide and seek with the public and become 24 x 7 x 365 politician? Many in the party would believe, and justifiably so, that if he could not become a round the clock leader when the going was good, he is unlikely to be one now when the chips are down and he needs to be visible, audible and mobile all the time. The five months since the Lok Sabha defeat have only entrenched their perception of the man who is increasingly donning the mantle of the party chief. Rahul flunks again Rahul has already failed the first three tests since the national elections. He refused to lead the party in the Lok Sabha and barring one brief spurt of egging on his MPs to demand a debate, he continues to maintain a stoic silence in Parliament. Two, after leading the campaigns in previous elections, he chickened out of it in the Maharashtra and Haryana polls. Other than addressing a couple of token rallies both he and Sonia seemed to have abandoned the party and its leaders in these states to their dismal fate. And they are likely to do the same in J&K and Jharkhand, and perhaps in other subsequent state polls. It was part of Sonia’s strategy to protect him from the onslaughts he faced after the Lok Sabha polls over his leadership. As one leader had told this correspondent that in the choice between the party and Rahul, Sonia has cast her lot with her son. Linked to this is Rahul’s third failure. For one who has been calling the shots, he has failed to realize or emphasize the need for a post-debacle brainstorming session no matter how painful or brutal. Indeed, in not going for it, he and Sonia have failed the workers who are ready to rise and fight the BJP and Modi so long as the leadership shows the courage to take it on the chin. Indeed, even regional parties have woken up to the threat of a resurgent BJP that could drive them into oblivion. In Bihar, arch rivals, JD-U’s Nitish Kumar and RJD’s Lalu Prasad shed their egos and joined hands to stop the BJP in the bypolls. In UP, SP’s Mulayam Singh Yadav got some of the splinter groups of the erstwhile Janata Dal to agree to a common platform to take on the BJP in Parliament and, if there is a consensus, to reunite in the future. But the Congress? It has not even identified the factors responsible for its debacle, with the AK Antony panel’s entire effort seeming to be to protect Rahul from any blame. And now, the person who is said to have played a huge role in the party’s defeat has been entrusted with the task of trying to find a way out of the mess. In the last few days, Rahul has been interacting with senior leaders, including Chidambaram, to revive the party. And knowing the way Rahul has been trying to discover India, including sleeping in dalit hutments, it will be a long while before he can even begin the process of reviving the party. Meanwhile, Modi would have barricaded all avenues for revival.