Karthi Chidambaram's sage advice: Is he right in telling high command to let TN Cong be?

After GK Vasan’s split from the party, the only thing that keeps the Tamil Nadu Congress newsworthy is Karthi Chidambaram, son of former union minister P Chidambaram. Although most of his utterances haven’t gone well with the party cadres and leaders, he has suddenly become vocal. Does he suddenly see a chance for himself after Vasan’s exit? Or is it because he believes that it’s time to take the plunge, notwithstanding the fact that he came fourth in Sivaganga where he contested for the Lok Sabha elections? First, it was his comment that questioned the role of the high command in the affairs of the party’s state unit. Suggesting limited intervention, he said. “The Tamil Nadu unit must have a fair amount of autonomy in functioning. We must re-think this high command observer culture… Tamil Nadu political market is very crowded. Congress has to be more proactive.” he reportedly said. “We cannot wait for Delhi to show the path in every single way. There must be a far greater autonomy to the state unit. We must be in line with the national policy, but the state unit must be able to act and react much more swiftly in every issue.” [caption id=“attachment_1821361” align=“alignleft” width=“380”]  Karthi Chidambaram. Agencies[/caption] He also suggested that Tamil Nadu should follow the Kerala model in which the local leaders handle the party issues with some autonomy and then go to the high command for their approval. Although, it made considerable political sense because most of the time the party’s stand on issues facing the state are not consistent with that of the local parties, the Tamil Nadu Congress Committee president EVKS Elangovan, immediately ticked him off. He said Karthi should have expressed his opinion in a party forum and not in the media. The next controversy was even stronger because this time, he chose to target former Tamil Nadu chief minister and the most revered Congress leader from the state Kamaraj, whose name is invoked by every Congress leader. The Congress political plank has always been bringing back the “Kamaraj rule”, which according to the party leaders, had been the best phase of governance in Tamil Nadu. No party meeting or election campaign is complete without Kamaraj’s name. But Karthi had a different view point. Addressing the youth wing of the party, which he heads, Karthi said that by invoking his name alone, the party cannot win. He said the new generation did not know about Kamaraj and hence the party should speak about its plans and the future. He even referred to Narendra Modi’s win and said the he didn’t win by speaking about Ram Rajya or Vajpayee rule. “There will be no use speaking about the freedom struggle and the past glory of Congress. Though my views are controversial, I am not hesitant to air them. The younger generation do not know about Kamaraj rule and the party cannot come to power only by citing his name,” he said. This time Elangovan had to use some harsh words against Karthi. The rift between them threatened to further polarise the party cadres. However, they patched up soon. In a meeting, Karthi said that his opinion on Kamaraj was twisted and that he didn’t have any problem with Elangovan rapping him. Elangovan in response said all was well. Karthi is perhaps trying to create some space for himself within the party, now that Vasan has left. But, what he perhaps doesn’t realise is that such cosmetic changes might not help because the party has a serious grassroots and policy problem. Thanks to its high command-centric governance, the party is always a loser when it comes to sensitive issues such as Sri Lankan Tamils. While the Dravidian parties and other local outfits competitively exploit local issues, the Congress mostly ends up as a mute witness. For the same reasons, nobody wanted to even align with it for the Lok Sabha elections despite its two digit vote-share. However, Karthi is probably right on both the controversial points. The state unit of the Congress has to function like a completely autonomous local party and has to capture the imagination of the people than being rooted to the past, however grand it had been.