Battle within: Congress pulls in many directions after loss

After suffering a crushing loss in Delhi and narrowly missing out in Chhattisgarh morale could not have been very high in the Congress, but the claim that it sabotaged its own effort will only make things worse. Former Delhi Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit has blamed the disconnect between the party and government for her terrible showing in the Delhi elections. The Delhi Pradesh Congress Committee retorted saying that it was she who failed to use the party’s resources enough, relying instead on her own record and judgement to carry the party through. “The DPCC wasn’t utilised enough by her. If we had been involved more, then things would have been different,” a party leader was quoted as saying in an Indian Express report. In Chhattisgarh, Charan Das Mahant who led the Congress campaign had a similar complaint and pointed out, like in Delhi, senior leaders and MLAs who had been elected easily enough in the past didn’t win this time. “Rebels were propped up against them and they were financed. We have received complaints and I had informed Rahulji even before the elections. I suspect there was internal sabotage to defeat them,” Mahant told the Indian Express. [caption id=“attachment_1278707” align=“alignleft” width=“380”]  Time for Sonia to take charge again? PTI[/caption] While both leaders preferred not to name their opponents within the party, it seems the divide in the party stretches vertically all the way to the central leadership over how the party is to be run. While Rahul Gandhi has promised that he would change the party like the Indian voter can’t imagine, his own party leaders are sticking to more tried and tested formulas. One camp, consisting of leaders like Jyotiraditya Scindia and Digvijaya Singh, are pushing for the declaration of the Congress Vice President as the party’s prime ministerial candidate. “It can help us at the hustings. Anyway, it has to happen sometime. Why delay,” an unnamed Union minister was quoted as having said in a Times of India report. Others feel the problem is the Congress Vice President and his continuing focus on improving the party rather than on the immediate challenges is the problem plaguing the Congress. “We need to focus on the immediate and not a 15-year programme. We need to accept the reality of coalition politics. It is difficult to go back to single party rule, a dream that Rahul_ji_ has,” a senior Congress leader was quoted as saying in the Economic Times. However, that doesn’t mean the old guard want to get rid of Rahul Gandhi just yet because they still see him as a face that can attract allies for the party after the 2014 polls. There are some in the old guard, like Mani Shankar Aiyyar, who believe that the party should be allowed to even lose the next general election so that Rahul Gandhi can continue his cleansing of the party. Aiyar claims that so far Rahul Gandhi was ’experimenting with innovation in his remit’ and took charge of the party too late to make a difference in the state polls. Justifying his stand he writes: But such a purge of power brokers and the induction of a party leadership elected by the broad membership of the Congress will take time. The distraction of running a government will impede the long-term restoration of the party. A break from governance would be a welcome break that could be used to refit the party as the nation’s natural party of governance in the 21st century. There will be few others in the Congress who will welcome sitting in the opposition benches with as much enthusiasm as Aiyar. The loss in the state elections only confirms what many have said about the Congress being out of touch with what its electorate wants. Rahul Gandhi has done little so far to show he understands what his party wants, let alone the electorate. The reforms that he has attempted in the party ahead of the four state elections have either been found to be hollow or haven’t yielded the intended result. The results have only split the party further over what Rahul sees as reform for the party as the old guard is unwilling to yield ground any time soon. If Mahant and Dikshit’s statements are anything to go by, dissidents are even willing to sabotage their own party rather than allow them to be successful. Claims of reform and remodelling are not new to the Congress party but as Mani Shankar Aiyar points out, these have largely been academic exercises within the party. Rahul Gandhi may have the power to make the changes he promises but so far he’s not shown any sign that he can push them through in any manner that matters for the party and like his predecessors could only be perpetuating an academic exercise. Historians like Ramchandra Guha have argued that it’s time for the Congress Vice president to step down and if Rahul Gandhi joins Aiyar in the opposition benches after 2014, he risks playing into the hands of the very people he claims the party wants to shun.