Chinmaya IAS Academy – Current Affairs Chinmaya IAS Academy – Current Affairs
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For the Indian National Congress that was anticipating a wipe-out in Maharashtra and Haryana, the Assembly elections that just concluded in these two States have revived hope in an organisation that has been in a comatose state since the general election earlier this year. In Maharashtra, the party, in partnership with the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) led by the redoubtable Sharad Pawar, has limited the extent of the Bharatiya Janata Party-Shiv Sena’s victory, making the process of government formation difficult. And in Haryana, along with other Opposition parties, it has managed to force the BJP to seek post-poll partners to form a government. Reality versus polarisation These results, however, cannot be read as a sign that the Congress is on the comeback trail. Even its victories in the Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and Chhattisgarh Assembly elections, that were held towards the end of 2018, saw the party biting the dust in these States a few months later in the Lok Sabha election. But they do demonstrate that the Narendra Modi-Amit Shah duo is not invincible, and that local issues do matter. They show that playing the politics of polarisation cannot always trump issues of rising unemployment, growing rural distress and an economy facing a downturn. Therefore, for the Congress to remain politically relevant, its organisation must become battle-ready, so that when an opportunity arises, it can take advantage of its opponents’ shortcomings. A former Congress functionary went so far as to say that these results demonstrated that the party had been “defeated organisationally, not politically”. Of course, the Congress needs to do more to become a winner: it must have a convincing counter-narrative and a leader who can sell its own message of hope. But these State elections do reveal the chink in the BJP’s armour. Party in a churn Ever since the Congress faced its second successive rout in a Lok Sabha election, the party leadership has appeared to give up, weakening an already damaged organisation. Rahul Gandhi resigned as party president on May 25. And for three months thereafter, the party remained headless till his mother, Sonia Gandhi, became interim party president on August 10 in an old guard-driven coup, barely weeks before elections were due in Maharashtra and Haryana. No effort was made to introspect on why the Congress had fared so poorly in the Lok Sabha election nor was there any attempt to rebuild the organisation. In fact, even for these two State elections, a high-level coordination committee was set up barely 10 days ahead of polling day. The fact that the party won a respectable number of seats in these elections — State heavyweights took the lead while the Gandhi family took a back seat — therefore, sends out a message to the party as a whole. Rahul Gandhi was absent for much of the campaigning period, confining himself to a handful of rallies. Mrs Gandhi, who has been doing a holding job, did not address any rally; neither did her daughter and party general secretary Priyanka Gandhi Vadra. In Maharashtra, party State chief Balasaheb Thorat and Congress legislative party (CLP)leader K.C. Padavi, who were appointed only in July, have little clout. At any other time, these appointments could have been read as an attempt to build a new leadership, but not months short of State elections. Meanwhile, the Mumbai Regional Congress Committee (MRCC) remained headless between July and September even as Mr. Gandhi did little to check acolyte and former MRCC chief Sanjay Nirupam from attacking the party leadership publicly.
