Post-election introspection sessions in the Congress are generally excuse-finding exercises. These end up finding no grave flaws in poll strategy, cadre mobilization or the conduct of the thick middle-tier of leadership. Of course, the top leadership is shielded from all criticism. It in turn makes stern promise of drastic action to turn things around. The party’s reaction is following the script this time too.
If Rahul has missed the message from this round of assembly election, here it is. In Madhya Pradesh the party had no reason to perform as poorly as it did. It had quelled the factional trouble, found a new leader and the list of candidates had some freshness. It had launched the campaign with some aggression targeting the BJP government’s weakest spot: corruption.
Shivraj was popular but his ministers and MLAs had shrunk low in public estimation. The Congress strategy to launch an attack here was spot on too. It was expected, not to win the election but secure at least 20 seats more. But despite all the advantages it collapsed. In Chhattisgarh, almost the entire top brass was finished off in a deadly Maoist attack earlier this year.
Yet the party was not even able to create a ripple of sympathy for itself across the state for itself. Raman Singh’s government suffered the same handicaps as Shivraj’s. The leader was popular, but MLAs and ministers were poor performers, and there were several corruption charges against them. However, the Congress failed to wrest the advantage.
In Rajasthan, there were clear signs that the Gehlot government would go, but nobody anticipated that it would end up with 21 seats out of 200. Probably nobody’s telling Rahul that the party organization has collapsed across the country – the scale of the defeat across the country suggests so; probably he is not smart enough to realize it even after such disastrous performances year after year.
There’s virtually no connect between the grassroots workers and the people at large; between the workers and the local leadership and between the latter and the higher intermediate leadership in the state. State-level leaders, also faction heads, are busy protecting their interests through an elaborate system of patronage and loyalty. Take the case of Digvijaya Singh for instance.
The Congress in Madhya Pradesh is still identified with the scandalous ten years of Digvijaya at the helm before 2003. In fact, during the election campaign Shivraj Singh Chouhan made it a point to ask people to compare the BJP’s ten years in power with that of Digvijaya’s. Manipulative and unreliable, the latter is clearly among the most disliked persons among the party cadre.
Yet till not so long ago he controlled the majority of Congress factions and had a larger-than-life presence in the party. After Jyotiraditya Scindia’s arrival as the campaign committee chief of the party his wings are clipped. But many in the party would say it took too long for the party to cut him to size. Now, he has cleverly discovered a new role for himself as the cheerleader of Rahul Gandhi and as his unofficial spokesperson. The middle level of the party’s hierarchy is full of people like him.
Will Rahul Gandhi be bold enough to show the likes of Digvijaya the door? If he does so it would be the first major step towards addressing organizational anomalies. It is at the middle level the party needs to initiate drastic steps. Someone must tell him that leaders are only as good as the organization. There would be no Narendra Modi without an efficient organization converting his personal appeal into votes through smart ground-level mobilization.
Likewise, Rahul won’t be such a disaster if he had a fighting-fit organization backing him up. In fat, both are mutual dependent. Yes, he is bringing in changes in the organization and since the Congress is a massive party and the rot runs too deep, the results would take time to show up. But does he recognize the real trouble spots? Why have not we seen any bold action from him against errant party leaders? If he is serious about introspection, he should do it alone, not among people who are the reason of the party’s downfall.
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