Articles

In the absurd algorithm of politics, winning an election  alone doesn’t guarantee success. Even a loser accrues more power if his followers still crave for his stewardship. Public visibility remains in its burnished state, and the leader remains as the cynosure of media vision. The Gandhis, from Indira to Sonia, have faced adverse party conditions after electoral defeats. Yet they never lost control over the Congress. Splits notwithstanding, the ‘real’ Congress has survived only under a Gandhi. Rahul Gandhi couldn’t serve victory to his 120-year-old party in the recent Assembly elections. Still, atavistically, both mother and son not only consolidated their grip over their outfit, but also took important decisions without taking anyone into confidence. Their focus wasn’t on how to corral new leaders with mass connectivity. Congress toadies, however, sung sycophantic symphony demanding Rahul’s formal coronation as the party president replacing Sonia, who has decelerated her schedule.

The media, which has been predicting Rahul’s anointment for years, behaved like a soothsayer on steroids, forecasting a change of guard at the AICC. There is no better balm to the eyes of political panjandrums than a place on the front pages and prime time news space even when the party is almost in ICU. The Congress Conundrum is that the Gandhi Glamour may have had a political eclipse, but Mom and Junior remain the most sought-after political personalities after PM Narendra Modi. Their inexplicable success lies in their pathological inaccessibility and centralisation of power.

Once again, the decade-old question rears its head, “Will Rahul become the boss?” Predictably, the Gandhi Parivar is maintaining a cryptic silence. Let enigma hide the magma beneath the political surface. This stance has encouraged their myrmidons to keep the rumour mills grinding on Rahul’s possible elevation to prove that the prince may be down but he is out to be the king soon. By avoiding a decision, the Gandhis have again averred that they, and only they—not the media or anyone else—will decide the contours of the party. Congress spinmeisters warble, “No Gandhi, no party.”

In spite of news reports announcing rebellions in the Northeast, Chhattisgarh and other states, several senior leaders joined the “Bring Rahul” chorus. For example, Punjab Pradesh Congress President Capt. Amarinder Singh, who shares little rapport with Rahul, parroted the sentiment. For the past few months, the Congress has been fighting a lost cause. Internal squabbles felled its government in Arunanchal Pradesh. It almost lost power in Uttarakhand when one-third of its MLAs defected to the BJP. Over and above, it was wiped out in Assam and Kerala, reducing it into a circus of tiny serfdoms.

Despite all reversals, the party’s biological composition remains unaffected. Although it enjoys national status, the Congress operates more like a regional party led by caste-based parties. The Gandhis—like the Yadavs, Abdullahs, Chautalas, Badals and Gowdas who control smaller parties—will always reign over the Congress. The Congress, too, is a closely held family enterprise in which the Gandhis are the sole shareholders. They have full control over the General Body and Executive Board. Even after election routs, all political decisions were announced in their name.

Last week, the AICC issued a communique declaring Rajya Sabha candidates, whose names had been decided by Sonia-Rahul (SoRa) after consultations with other leaders. Earlier, election candidates and CMs were chosen at meetings of the Election Committee of the Parliamentary Board. This time, the Gandhis not only finalised the names of five ministers in the Pudducherry cabinet but also appointed V Narayanaswamy, a former UPA Union minister, as its CM nominee. He hadn’t even contested the election. Since both the Congress legislature party leader and state president were in the fray in the Assembly polls, Rahul had made Narayanaswamy election in-charge and gave him the task of coordinating government formation with the help of allies. A section of the Congress felt that the High Command hadn’t learnt lessons from its electoral humiliation and was still imposing its choices on the states. The Gandhis habitually ignore local leaders, who enjoy mass support, in favour of those who lobby for themselves in Delhi.

The Gandhis are hardly concerned about the demoralised state of the party. According to insiders, Rahul is working on a road map for revival. For the past decade, neither is his imprimatur yet to be seen on the party, nor has he introduced any innovation to reboot the party. Though only God and the Gandhis know the facts, any chance of Rahul taking over as party president in the future is unlikely. Sonia remains the only glue, which keeps the old guard and Rahulites together. Even after 11 years in active politics, Rahul is still a work in progress. At the moment, the promoters of Brand Rahul are not confident about his marketability as a national product against the powerful and popular Modi. As the inheritor of a shrinking political pasture, Rahul is yet to prove whether he can expand it to the size of the kingdom his grandmother, father or mother had built. Sonia could bring the Congress back to power twice through alliance politics, but her son is yet to display his virtue as a connector of differing ideologies. 

Rahul’s only hope is to remain in the news thanks to the Sangh Parivar’s unabated tirade against the Family. The Gandhis and their lackeys feel that Modi’s ‘Congress-Mukt Bharat’ call will make them more relevant than ever—“hate us, love us, but none can afford to ignore us”. This is their fancied USP. Since the Gandhis and Congress are two sides of the same coin, they are unlikely to vaporise from the political bottle.

Newly minted Modi coins will need much energy to drive out old currency like Sonia-Rahul out of circulation, who still rattle in people’s pockets like reminders of another time.