Rahul as Congress party prez? Don't hold your breath

Sonia Gandhi’s five-year term as Congress president ends next year. But after the party’s debacle in the Lok Sabha elections — which saw its seats plummeting from 206 in 2009 to a mere 44 in 2014 — it would appear that the party’s longest and uninterrupted serving chief until now may have to reconsider any plan she may have had of officially passing on the mantle to her son and Amethi MP Rahul Gandhi. The spate of bush fires in the Congress’s backyards in Maharashtra, Assam, Haryana, Jharkhand and other places have only made it more difficult for Sonia to complete the unfinished task she had set upon herself to elevate her son who, in the last 10 years, has had a meteoric rise from being a mere MP to general secretary and vice president and was expected to be anointed party president. Indeed, until the Lok Sabha polls, the general impression was that Sonia would retire and hand over the baton to Rahul. It seemed a natural progression of events when Rahul was made vice president at a specially convened Congress conclave in Jaipur in January 2013, one step short of becoming the party chief. Almost in keeping with this plan of action, the Amethi MP had begun to make a generational change in the party, bringing new young and fresh faces and investing them with responsibilities. The 2004 and 2009 elections saw the party fielding a whole new line of young leaders, many of whom however fell by the wayside in 2014 as the party paid the price of 10 years of incumbency, price rise, inflation, allegations of corruption and the paralysis in decision-making of the Congress-UPA government of Manmohan Singh. [caption id=“attachment_1639409” align=“alignleft” width=“380”]  Sonia and Rahul Gandhi. AFP.[/caption] Rahul’s own report card is filled with red lines barring a stray victory of 21 parliamentary seats in UP in 2009. He had to sweat it out in his constituency this time, his three lakh plus victory margin reduced a little over a lakh. His failure to deliver in the slew of assembly elections, including in Bihar, Uttar Pradesh, Gujarat, Rajasthan, Delhi, Chhattisgarh and Madhya Pradesh, and in the 2014 Lok Sabha polls brought with it its own aftereffects. It has put a break on the generational change that the Amethi MP wanted to bring in the organization. It has created tensions between the youngsters recruited by Rahul and the old guard which had rallied behind Sonia when she entered active politics a little more than a decade back and steered the party to victory in two Lok Sabha elections. It sparked off dissensions and revolts in state units as they try to battle their way out of a bleak future. It has transformed the hopes that workers had pinned on Rahul into deep disillusionment so much so that there is a palpable fear that the worst is perhaps not over if the reins of the party are handed over to the 44 year MP who has shown a remarkable reluctance to take on any governmental or parliamentary responsibilities while wielding immense organizational powers. Leaders admit that there is no knowing how things will pan out during the party polls. But there is little doubt that the workers would be a little more confident of the Congress’s revival under Sonia’s stewardship than they would under Rahul. Though Sonia suffered some setbacks after she became the party chief in 1998, she reinvented the Congress’s image, appeal and reach to lead it to two consecutive Lok Sabha victories in 2004 and 2009. In September 2010, she got her fourth consecutive term as party president and sought to use the time to try and groom Rahul to step into her shoes in 2015. But the series of electoral setbacks and organizational problems now form the backdrop to the organizational polls the process of which has been initiated with the membership drive which, in turn, will be followed by the primary, block, state and national level elections. The entire process is expected to be completed in the first half of 2015. And despite Sonia’s advancing age—she is 67 now—and her intermittent health problems, many in the party are hoping that the change that they foresaw before the general elections does not happen and Sonia continues to lead the party. Unless, of course, Priyanka Vadra is also brought into the picture. They see in Rahul’s sister a charismatic figure who with her pugnacity can take on the BJP and Prime Minister Narendra Modi much like her grandmother Indira Gandhi did when she worsted her opponents. Their ideal team would consist of the trinity of Sonia at the helm, with Rahul and/or Priyanka as presiding or working president. But until Priyanka makes up her mind, many in the party would like to place their future, not in Rahul, but Sonia’s hands. “We need Sonia Gandhi to get us out of this mess. Only she can revive the party,’’ said a Congress leader. But the problem is that even Sonia, after trying to shield Rahul by taking the blame for the debacle, hasn’t stepped forward to steer the party in the manner in which the leaders want her too. There is no doubt that she initially interacted intensely with workers, leaders and other stakeholders to identify the causes for the party’s shock defeat. But shortly thereafter, she entrusted this task to loyalist A K Antony who is likely to identify every other reason for the debacle except what a section in the party believes is Rahul’s uninspiring leadership. Even more damaging is the growing perception that he is a shirker of responsibilities. His refusal to join the Manmohan Singh government or to replace him midstream or even become the leader of a truncated party in the Lok Sabha after the general elections has not gone down well with even those who give him the benefit of doubt. And despite the feedback that his experiment of broadbasing and democratizing the party’s frontal organizations has introduced the role of money power in the poll process, he continues to persist with it. Sonia continues to leave key decisions to him as evidenced by his move to re-invest his faith in general secretary Madhusudan Mistry to oversee the selection of candidates for the forthcoming assembly elections in Maharashtra, Haryana, Jharkhand and Jammu and Kashmir. Mistry was given this charge earlier in the Lok Sabha polls in which the Congress came a cropper, managing to get only 44 seats, 11 less than what would have automatically entitled it to claim the status of leader or opposition. Much like Rahul, Mistry too lacks worker-voter-people connect. Uttar Pradesh, the state he was in charge as general secretary, only managed to send only Sonia and Rahul to the Lok Sabha. The man himself lost the election of Vadodara to Narendra Modi who is now prime minister. Some of Rahul’s former acolytes too are disillusioned with him and are wondering why Sonia has not adhered to her decision to take the lead in repairing the damage done to the party as promised on her first visit to her parliamentary constituency Rae Bareli after the elections. At that time, she had said ``We will have to win back the confidence of the people in areas where the party has lost and I will lead from the front in this task…” But after her initial moves of meeting workers, former MPs and state and central leaders to get into the reasons of the defeat and signal that she would spearhead the mission to boost the sagging morale of the workers and prop up the crumbling organisation, she has gradually eased up on her efforts without actually walking into the shadows. “The election result is a huge setback. But we are ready to fight. However, there must be somebody ready to lead us also,’’ said a senior leader adding``Till that happens, hum log hawa main talwar hi ghumate rahenge,’’ (we will continue to flash our swords in the air).