The Congress party's real Plan B: Lose the election, defeat BJP

As the dust settles over Rahul Gandhi’s now widely panned media outing, there is renewed talk of party strategy. Does the grand old party have an actual plan, or is it banking on the anyone-but-Modi vote to muddle through the coming elections. The bits and pieces spread across various news articles hint at some of the broad contours of a 2014 strategy. The AICC meet brought to fore a lot of chatter about Rahul’s big plan to target the NRMB – Not rich, not-middle class, not BPL – the 70 crore Indians who fall between poverty and middle class status. But much of this reads as just another variation of UPA’s signature populism. Will it be enough to win a national election? The more intriguing speculation claims that  party plans are built not on the desire for victory, but an expectation of defeat. And these ring truer than the rest. Despite their assertions to the contrary, surely no one in Congress expects to win given the dismal numbers churned out by survey after survey. But even in defeat, there is one goal that the Congress can still achieve: keep the Narendra Modi and the NDA out of power. [caption id=“attachment_1368323” align=“alignleft” width=“380”]  Manmohan Singh with Sonia Gandhi and Rahul Gandhi. Reuters.[/caption] The first and primary prong of an anti-BJP project is, as Hindustan Times reports , alliances, alliances, alliances. Hence all the sweet talk about Lalu Prasad in Bihar, and reconciliation efforts with National Conference in Kashmir, and NCP in Maharashtra. Praful Patel is even allowed to defend Modi, as long he stays in the fold. But none of this alliance work is going to help UPA stay in power, and even Rahul Gandhi knows it. The aim instead, suggests Ajit Sahi in Tehelka, is to strengthen third party performance so Congress can play kingmaker by supporting a Third Front from the outside, much as they did in Delhi with AAP to keep BJP out of power. Toward this goal, in states like Uttar Pradesh, the Congress will front weak candidates when required to consolidate the anti-BJP vote behind a third party – rather than play the spoiler.  Anything to keep that BJP tally down, writes Sahi: “The fact is that if Modi fails to bring the BJP to power, his political power would be hugely dented,” a Congress leader told TEHELKA. Having been out of power for a decade already, the BJP would then run a risk of falling into disarray, he said, which would give Rahul enough time to reshape the Congress party and be ready for the next election. In any case, in a scenario wherein the Congress party backs a minority Third Front government, Rahul would have the advantage of pulling out the support at a time of his choosing that would trigger a mid-term election, he suggested. It all sounds wonderfully Machiavellian, but uneasy lies the head that loses the crown. Rahul’s flailing performance combined with his zeal for party reform hasn't earned him any love among the party’s old guard. Worse still is his complacent embrace of immediate electoral defeat in the guise of touting a ’long term’ vision. “Whenever there are internal discussions… Rahulji says he wants Congress to go back to its old glory of single-party rule. But we are obviously worried about the immediate — 2014 elections,” a general secretary told Economic Times. The lofty indifference to electoral outcomes is all the more galling given that Rahul has spent the past 10 years “learning” instead of leading his party to victory. As one party leader told The Telegraph, “Rahul was spot-on when he stressed the dire need for reaching out to the people in his first speech at the Hyderabad AICC plenary (in 2006). He said the Congress was weakened because leaders stopped going to the people and raising their concerns. Had he focused on this problem in the last decade, the Congress would have been expecting 300 seats today. But Rahul got confused and failed to understand that reforms are just one part of politics.” A big defeat in 2014 may therefore prove to the proverbial last straw for the old guard which, Sahi claims, is “quietly digging in for a prolonged entrenched warfare once the election is over.” He writes further: Since most satraps, and their second-tier leaderships in the states, control the party apparatus in their backyards, Rahul has become a lone ranger in his quest. Old-timers recall how his father, former PM Rajiv Gandhi, had tripped in the 1980s when he tried to radically overhaul the party. A failure to win for his party the forthcoming election would further erode Rahul’s capital, already much depleted in public imagination from losing a string of state elections. Far-fetched as they may appear, the eerie prospects of an implosive takedown of the Congress party’s original dynasty in case of an electoral rout are real.  The 2014 election is poised to deliver some big surprises. But the biggest shocker may be reserved for the aftermath, as India’s oldest political party and dynasty, each meets its real moment of reckoning. Read Sahi’s column in its entirety on the Tehelka website