Congress : Get Up Or Get Out !
BY
R.K.MISRA
There is this tale about the wise man and the fool.
The wise man does at once what
the fool does finally, said Niccolo Machiavelli, the father of modern political
philosophy and science.
Whether
Jyotiraditya Scindia is the wiseman and
the Congress a fool is best left for posterity to decipher but current facts bode a different political
script .
This
is not about Jyotiraditya Scindia who took 18 benefit-filled years to realise
that the grass on the BJP side was greener. Nor is it about the fall of the
Kamal Nath led Congress government or the consequential rise of a possible BJP
equivalent in Madhya Pradesh.
Again, it
is also not about the political
engineering genius of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his party chief turned home minister Amit Shah.
This is about the Indian National Congress.
In
a canvass that spans centuries many
‘Jyotis’ lighted up and extinguished. Even father Madhavrao left Congress and
returned to the fold for lack of a viable option.
The
fact is that the Jan Sangh-BJP-like most other parties - is born out of the Congress gene pool, Shyamaprasad
Mukherjee and all. But the rise of the Narendra Modi -Amit Shah led BJP to
national domination post -2014 seeks a
one point RSS agenda. The Congress must die for the extreme right to build a new national
narrative. If it involves denuding the Congress of it’s bark and branches so be it. Jyotiraditya is
one of many, poached nationwide as part
of this strategy.
Congress,
in whatever form it may be, is central to India. It is the liberal-centrist
formation that must lock horns with the rightist BJP. It can bank on the
emerging left for grudging support even as regional forces prevaricate. These
may be the NCP-Shiv Sena in Maharashtra or the JMM in Jharkhand who have chosen to go along with the
Congress. But if it fails in this task the Congress will be wiped out.
The
Congress, however seems lost in the political woods. It is tethering on the
brink because of it’s prolonged indecisiveness caused by differences . Not
within the party but within the Nehru-Gandhi family. An electoral debacle in
2019,saw Rahul Gandhi quit as party
chief but sister Priyanka seen as
a successor kept playing wing-side but
avoided centre-play, creating confusion, The ageing and not-to-well Sonia Gandhi took charge only to
accentuate the slide. Why? There is a tussle going on within the Congress between the old guards who want to
safe guard their citadels and the young
who would like to forge a new path and take-on the Modi establishment head-on.
The day Rahul quit , this young guard was orphaned and the oldies ensured a
clear playing field for their ilk- Kamal
Nath in MP and Ashok Gehlot in Rajasthan- to the detriment of Jyotiraditya and
Sachin Pilot.
As
in individuals so in political parties. Age must give way to youth but the old
guard surrounding Sonia Gandhi is a coterie out to scuttle what she most
wants-a place for Rahul under the sun. This coterie has worked overtime to
disband ,even disperse all Rahul Gandhi favourites. This same model played out
in other states of the country. Jyotiraditya is just one example.
Modi
is a clear-headed ,calculating foe. He wants and works to take the Congress
apart brick by brick .And India’s sole stakeholder of the independence struggle is steadily sinking in to a Modi
muddied quagmire, yet reluctant to raise it’s head and even look around.
The
Congress need to go no further than Mrs Indira Gandhi in lessons for
revitalizing their party. In fact, Rahul
began in right earnest, when he started rebuilding the moribund youth congress
through membership drives and grassroot elections. The impact was clearly
visible but the experiment fell by the wayside when the old guard bypassed the
youth in ticket allotment during the Lok Sabha elections that followed.
This
was unlike Indira Gandhi. Her leadership was decisive. On numerous occasions
Indira walked straight into formidable
resistance by the old guards led by the likes of Morarji Desai, Nijalingappa,
Atulya Ghosh(the Congress-O or Syndicate Congress) as it came to be known.
Every time she took on the old guard, she created a new team. Written off
,every time there was a setback, she came riding back to power after decimating
her opponents with a youthful team.
The
loss of power in 2014 was a classic
opportunity for the Congress to rebuild its organization. Rahul’s earnestness
paid dividends in Gujarat Assembly elections in 2017 when the Congress scared
the daylights out of the ruling BJP bringing its tally down to less than 100 in
a 182 member house but the advantage was subsequently frittered away after
Rahul relinquished charge.
Decisive
youth- led leadership is the need of the hour for the Congress. It is still not
too late to rebuild the party from scratch, whatever time it takes, more in
keeping with the aspirations of a young India. Take a leaf out of Indira Gandhi’s political book and get to
work. It can’t get any worse, so no harm in clearing all the old obstructions and going back to
the drawing board with a new team to fashion a new party. If you don’t, you
perish. India needs a strong and vibrant Congress with it’s old value system as a counterfoil to the BJP.
You
either fight or run for ever. As for those who left- and there were many and
will be many more- they are best forgotten.
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