Congress, India’s Grand Old Party, Withers In Absence Of Strong Leadership And Agenda

India's opposition Congress, known as the Grand Old Party and considered an inheritor of the legacy of the political movement that wrested freedom for India from colonial British rule, is withering away to irrelevance as it fails to feel the pulse of the new generation of voters proud of their Hindu heritage.

India's Grand Old Party is finding few takers for its so-called secular ideology which it has been championing since the British colonial Raj days. The Congress party has instead been accused of appeasing and focusing only on the Muslim community.

In the recent assembly elections in five provincial states, the party suffered the biggest setback when results were declared March 10.

In Uttar Pradesh, the crucial and the country's most populous state, Congress managed to secure only two seats in the 403 state assembly, despite the interim party president Sonia Gandhi's daughter, Priyanka Gandhi, acting like a star campaigner in the Northern Indian state of Uttar Pradesh. The party even lost deposits on 97 percent of the seats it contested in the state and got a vote share of only 2.3 percent.

This was despite the mainstream media's attempt to raise various misgovernance and caste discrimination issues over the last five years.

In the strategically located Punjab, bordering Pakistan, the Congress not only just lost but was literally wiped away by the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP), which was formed just ten years back in 2012 and is aspiring for a national presence by trying to replace Congress with its neoliberal ideology of good governance.

The Congress Party was unable to come to attain power in the western state of Goa, the northeastern state of Manipur, and the northern state of Uttarakhand. This happened despite the fact that India, like every other nation in the world, faced the challenges of COVID-19. The economy was in tatters and the health facilities were stretched well over their limits.

Despite all this, the Congress party was attacking the ruling BJP in every state over the old rhetoric of Hinduism instead of real issues which mattered to the masses. The talk of Hindusim polarised the votes even further and gave an advantage to the rightwing Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).

Reacting to the poll results, Congress leader Rahul Gandhi, who quit the post of party president following the 2019 poll debacle, said that he humbly accept the people's verdict. However, he did not take responsibility for the defeat itself.

"Humbly accept the people's verdict. Best wishes to those who have won the mandate," Rahul tweeted.

Since Rahul's resignation, his mother and former party president Sonia Gandhi took over as acting president. The party is working out to zero in on a full-time president. The effort to find a successor to Rahul is not reaching anywhere as no names apart from the Gandhis are doing the rounds which have given more weight to the allegation that the Congress prefers a dynastic rule.

From time to time insiders in the party have been vocal to rally behind the Gandhis, saying that their presence at the helm of affairs of the party is necessary to keep discipline and unity among various warring factions. Thus, the Grand Old Party is unable to look beyond the Gandhi family for the top party job.

It was status quo once again at the Congress Working Committee (CWC), the party's apex decision-making body, meeting on March 13 which asked an unwilling Italian-born Sonia Gandhi, wife of the late prime minister Rajiv Gandhi, to continue as the party's acting president till at least September, when elections for the post of Congress president are scheduled to be held. An ailing Sonia has repeatedly expressed her willingness to step down from the party post.

At the meeting, held to review the poll debacle, the Gandhis, including Sonia, Rahul, and Priyanka, reportedly have expressed willingness to step down, it was immediately turned down by other senior members. But this is not new, every time the Congress party loses elections this happens. The post of party president bounces between one Gandhi to another.

Priyanka led the Congress in the 2019 Lok Sabha election first in UP, home to 243.4 million people. However, the party won just one seat - that of her mother Sonia Gandhi from Raebareli. However, she was not held accountable and was given a free hand to run this year's provincial elections in Uttar Pradesh and the party suffered a further nosedive in the key provincial state.

The party with Jawaharlal Nehru, India's first prime minister, as its tall leader invented the Nehruvian philosophy of inclusiveness and tolerance, initiated many affirmative actions and created a level-playing field for those who are backward and disadvantaged in the society.

In due course of time, inclusiveness turned into appeasement and in the Congress case, it was Muslims, of course not the community as a whole, who benefited from it.

When the BGP came into the limelight, it exposed the minority appeasement by various Congress governments, which ruled India for more than 50 years in its 70-year long independent history.

The BJP scornfully termed the party as "Khangress." In the due course of time, the BJP was able to convince the nation of the pseudo-secular nature of the Congress and lay the foundation for a theocratic state by wooing the majority of Hindus to their fold.

When the Congress party came into the tight grip of former prime minister Indira Gandhi, daughter of Jawahar Lal Nehru, the days of power manipulators who ensured no fairness in dealings and whose success depended on acceptance by the leadership started. She even imposed the emergency in 1975 when she felt that she is losing her grip over the nation.

Indira's monopoly over the party was too powerful that she could throw away anyone out and place opportunistic politicians in their place. The culture of acceptance by the leadership continues today. The result is that Congress is bereft of powerful regional leaders who can act like match-winners in times of crisis. The disconnect with the masses starts from here.

The party has been in turmoil after a 2019 national elections debacle. Some of its key young leaders in crucial provincial states have switched over to the BJP. Just a few months before the polls, a veteran and former Congress chief minister of Punjab, Amarinder Singh parted ways.

However, it is not easy to write of the oldest party in the country as still has a national voter base of about 20 percent.

Congress leader Shashi Tharoor, a former top UN executive, has said that Congress is worth reviving as it has the highest number of assembly members, next to the BJP.

In 2020, Congress' groups of 23 leaders (G-23), including Tharoor, had written a letter to Sonia Gandhi demanding reforms, including elections for CWC members, its president, and addressing the leadership vacuum. However, their revolt had a premature death.

As India's grand old party is bereft of deep pockets, a tall leader, formidable electoral machinery, and a nationalist agenda, it is awaiting another poll debacle at the national level at the 2024 general elections.