Desperate Congress wants a makeover but will Rahul Gandhi get his act together?

The Congress’ poor show in Jammu and Kashmir and Jharkhand could be the last straw for party workers who are tired of waiting for the top leadership to take the organization out of the morass it has been pushed into in the last couple of years through a series of electoral debacles both before and after the Lok Sabha polls.

There are signs of an impending eruption with two distinct streams emerging in the party, both united in their common motive to goad the leadership to act and break the ennui that continues to grip the organization. To its chagrin, the saffron party has become a king maker in J&K and Prime Minister Narendra Modi seems to be moving inexorably towards his objective to setting up a Congress-mukt Bharat, using each election to push their party further to the margins —and perhaps into near oblivion. The next up the chopping block are states like Bihar (2015), West Bengal (2016) and UP (2017) where the party has already been reduced to a fringe player.

Though the latest set of defeats were expected, it has intensified the woes of party workers and second rung leaders who are bothered more by the fact that their top bosses seem to be paralysed into inaction.

Unhappy with the prevailing state of affairs in the party, a group of Congressmen is now toying with the idea of forming a ginger group to express their anguish and protest and demand corrective measures. So far, any expression of unhappiness at the state of affairs in the party has been private and individual. But now for the first time there is open talk of forming a collective though it remains to be seen whether the idea will be pursued and given shape. There is little doubt that if such a group is formed it would consist essentially of leaders disgruntled both with the party’s inaction as well as with their own marginalization in the party, especially with the appointment of a new generation of state unit chiefs who consider them as has-beens.

The second set of leaders include those who want party chief Sonia Gandhi to take any action that helps to end the status quo even if it means elevating vice president Rahul as party president. “Kuch to karo,” said a despairing neta notwithstanding his reservations about the Amethi MP’s capabilities.

For precisely this reason, there is already a vocal group that has been calling for Rahul’s anointment as the top boss. Besides the younger lot of Congress leaders who owe their political existence and relevance to him, there are seniors like Digvijaya Singh who have openly called for his elevation. Once considered close to Rahul, Singh’s place in the charmed circle around the 44-year old Gandhi has been taken up by Madhusudan Mistry who, not surprisingly, is among those who believes that the future belongs to the Amethi MP.

The time is considered right for Rahul to take charge since Sonia completes her five year term in 2015 and fresh organizational polls culminating in the party president’s election have to be completed by the middle of the year. Accordingly, in the coming days, leaders like Singh are likely to vociferously renew their call to elevate Rahul —something which Sonia herself wants, given the fact that she is now 68, does not keep good health and would like to be around as a mentor for him and the party as well as a buffer between him and those who are unhappy with his uninspiring leadership and style of functioning.

His anointment as the top boss would formalize the existing arrangement in which he has been calling the shots ever since he was made vice president in January 2013 in the aftermath of the electoral disasters in states like Uttar Pradesh and Gujarat or subsequently in Delhi, Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh and Chattisgarh. After the party’s rout in the Lok Sabha polls in 2014 in which he was the star campaigner, Sonia ensured that the state leadership led the campaigns in the subsequent assembly polls in Maharashtra or Haryana where it was staring at a certain defeat.

With Rahul being increasingly blamed for the party’s sliding fortunes, Sonia tried to shield her son from sniper attacks by refusing to convene a brainstorming session, taking the responsibility for the defeat and offering to step down—an offer which was immediately rejected. The probe panel she set up to look  into the party’s defeat identified every factor barring one –Rahul’s uninspiring leadership.

Rahul has now been entrusted with the task of reviving the party. In the last few weeks he has been confabulating with senior leaders on how to rebuild the Congress. Another such meeting is scheduled with the AICC general secretaries on December 24.  “This is to prepare the roadmap for the party,’’ said a leader, claiming that the party is getting ready to mark a new beginning with the new year.

Sources maintain that Rahul has shed his reluctance and is ready to accept the responsibility of leading the party. Other than accepting a higher post and a greater profile and responsibility in the party which saw his meteoric rise from an ordinary MP to party general secretary and then vice president, Rahul has systematically refused to join the Manmohan Singh cabinet during the UPA regime or of leading the 44 member Congress parliamentary party in the Lok Sabha. Unlike his mother Sonia whose renunciation of the prime minister’s post in 2004 raised her stature, Rahul was slammed as a shirker for his refusals.

Not surprisingly, the big question is whether Rahul would measure up to the daunting challenge of reviving the party or leading it from the front if and when he is made party chief, given his penchant to suddenly vanish from the public eye when he is required to be on the job 24x7.

His first test for the new year is already on him, especially with the latest results further eroding the party’s image, appeal, credibility and acceptability.

During the winter session of Parliament ending December 23, the Congress had joined hands with other opposition parties to stall the Rajya Sabha, where the BJP-NDA is in a minority, and put the Modi government in the dock on the issue of conversions. But holding up proceedings in Parliament and preventing the government from pushing its legislative and reforms agenda unless the Prime Minister makes a statement against such religious conversions is an easy job. The real challenge for the Congress is to galvanise its grass-root workers to take on the BJP politically and ideologically. This requires a long, painful and tortuous haul, especially in the four key areas that the party has been talking about for the last couple of years but failed to work on.

These include the need to reinvent and rebrand the Congress, restructure the organisation and rework the political and socio-economic strategies that take into account changing social realities in which the middle class has moved further up the economic ladder and scheduled castes and tribes and other marginalized groups are now as aspirational as any other section demanding opportunities. But what they consider as possibly more important —and perhaps most difficult—is to rework the image and appeal of their chief. Can Rahul transform himself? Does he have it in him to deal with these challenges? His track record so far does not stand him in good stead. With the BJP becoming the new Congress, workers can only live on the thin sliver of hope that there will be a dawn some day to their dark nights.