There is a sense of déjà vu now about the Congress party’s interminable electoral routs (the last happened in March 2022) which is followed by much hullabaloo about “introspection”. After a few days of visible trauma, the grand old party returns to a deep slumber, occasionally awakened by a popular leader deserting it for greener pastures. Or someone going abroad.
In a collective chorus, the loyalists then shout, “We want Rahul Gandhi as our leader”.
I don’t know why they say that because they already have him. The 52-year old Rahul, who famously declared with self-righteous indignation in 2019 that he would never return to the top job and neither would anyone with Gandhi surname, has been openly running the show since. It is luminous hypocrisy, politically immoral, publicly duplicitous and worse, electorally disastrous. It has backfired. Horribly.
But the Congress is in a stupor, like a paralyzed deer in the headlights. Still, after being routed in two back-to-back Lok Sabha elections and losing 80 percent of the assembly elections since, the party that liberated India from the tyranny of British imperialism and inspired a new post-colonial world order, has perhaps sniffed the coffee. It faces extinction; it could actually be extinguished by 2024, thanks to a rejuvenated Arvind Kejriwal and the remorseless brutality of BJP that seeks its annihilation.
Enter Prashant Kishor a.k.a PK.
There are many cynics who will dismiss Kishor as a mere political consultant who analyses data trends meticulously, recommends boilerplate strategies, indulges in marketing gimmicks, creates smart sloganeering campaigns, and recommends a few leaders over the others. They miss the point; the man is driven by curating a winning formula (West Bengal, Andhra, Tamil Nadu, and 2014 itself, among others). He does not like losing.
For a party that has made losing elections a habitual obsession under Rahul, PK is god-sent. The Congress needs PK more than he needs the Congress. In the Congress political culture, few are gutsy enough to make well-meaning bold pragmatic suggestions which are in the party’s interest for fear of upsetting Rahul. The latter works with a set of dubious people who have a miraculous hold over him. There is a caucus within a cabal that operates the Congress. To succeed, PK will need not just a powerful independent position within the party that gives him direct access to the super boss (currently Sonia Gandhi), but he will need to either co-opt Rahul’s dodgy “advisers” or disrupt their endless honeymoon from 12, Tughlak Lane. Because the most hazardous threat to the Congress as we all know from time immemorial has been the Congress itself. Narendra Modi and Amit Shah are only collateral beneficiaries of the party’s suicidal ways.
PK, I am sure, knows that he is entering a minefield that could match those that the Russian army have planted in Kyiv. It is a perilous topography. I wish him luck. Because if he fails, Congress will be history.
It is germane to also point out that many of us have made presentations, written long and lengthy resuscitation strategies, and vociferously called for drastic organizational reforms, but were usually stonewalled. I am hoping PK will be able to pull them off. Here are a few suggestions:
1) The Congress president must have a single term of 3 years and cannot stand for re-election
2) The Congress must adopt a new organizational structure that has a president backed by five vice-presidents (North, East, West, South and North-East)
3) The party must appoint a Shadow Cabinet covering key portfolios when in opposition in both the center and states
4) There must be elections for Congress Working Committee (and other layers right down to the block level) every three years. Nominated members must not exceed 25 percent of CWC composition. “Permanent invitees” to the CWC must be scrapped.
5) The Congress must declare transparently the corporate corpus it receives for campaign finance. It must launch a technology-driven retail funding all-year fund raising campaign.
6) The party needs to focus on a low-hanging fruit strategy for elections—the principal aim should be to win states and seats where it is in direct confrontation with the BJP and wherever the practical probability of triumph is high. Elsewhere, it must only seek alliances.
7) The Congress must initiate the creation of a United Congress Front (UCF) that brings together the NCP, YSR Congress, TRS and the TMC under one giant canopy along with the mother ship, the Indian National Congress. This need not be a legal one-time merger, but an umbrella coalition wherein each entity maintains its unique identity and adheres to a partnership code of conduct. It is this UCF that should collectively strike regional alliances with SP, BSP, DMK, CPM, SS, RJD, AAP etc.
8) The Congress must address the elephant in the room; who will be its lighthouse? It is time to try the Sachin Pilot-Priyanka Gandhi twin ticket for 2024. Rahul must take a backseat. The dynasty may work within the party but a non-Gandhi face will give it a strong tailwind nationally. Priyanka-Pilot can be the party’s double-engine.
9) While the claims of digital membership enrollment requires an investigation to establish its authenticity, it is in last mile delivery that the party flounders. The Congress needs a robust booth management team and operational processes to galvanize its workers.
Expect many Congressmen to label PK as an outsider. Fair enough, but outsourcing creativity and blue sky thinking is normative. While some of us failed and got suspended, I hope PK has a slice of fortune. Today if he manages to turn the Congress' fortunes around, he will be rectifying what many of us (and obviously PK himself) consider a mistake.
Sanjay Jha is former National Spokesperson of the Congress, and author of The Great Unravelling: India After 2014. Twitter: @JhaSanjay.
Views are personal and do not represent the stand of this publication.
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