Kharge goes the Sonia-Rahul way: Holding CWC polls would have given winning Congress leaders legitimacy

Congress chief Mallikarjun Kharge

When the Congress witnessed a contest for the party’s presidency last year, it gave hope to its dispirited and disgruntled leaders that a fine precedent had been set and this would be followed by a series of internal elections, beginning with the membership of the Congress Working Committee.

However, these hopes were dashed on Friday when the party’s steering committee, comprising its top leadership, decided against holding internal elections and instead authorised Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge to nominate the members to the working committee, the party’s highest decision-making body. The steering committee meeting was held on the first day of the Congress party’s 85th plenary session in Raipur.

Reforms Fall By The Wayside

Inner-party democracy and wide-ranging organisational reforms were among the key demands listed by a group of 23 Congress leaders (G-23) in an exhaustive letter to former Congress president Sonia Gandhi three years ago. The letter had led to considerable turmoil in the party but Sonia Gandhi defanged the pro-changers when she agreed to their demand for organisational elections. Subsequently, a beginning was made last year when members of the Gandhi family decided to opt out of the race, paving the way for the election of Mallikarjun Kharge as Congress president, the first non-Gandhi to hold this post in the last 24 years.

However, the electoral process was halted at the Friday meet when there was an overall consensus among senior Congress leaders (with the exception of a few leaders like Ajay Maken, P.Chidambaram, Digvijaya Singh and Abhishek Singhvi ) that Kharge be given a free hand in picking his team members. Sonia Gandhi as well as Rahul and Priyanka Gandhi deliberately stayed away from this meeting, lest it be said that this decision was taken at their behest.

And yet, no one is convinced that the Gandhi family was unaware or did not in any way influence the 45-member steering committee to make a case against elections and push for the nomination route. The Gandhi family may not be occupying any official post but its hold on the party has in no way waned.

Team Rahul Still Lightweights

The steering committee’s resolution authorising Kharge to choose the members of the new working committee essentially means the Gandhi family is not ready to let go and that it remains in a position to “persuade” the new party chief to accommodate members of their choice.

According to the Congress constitution, the working committee comprises the party president, the party leader in Parliament and 23 other members. Of these, twelve are to be inducted through an election while the remaining are nominated by the Congress president. However, elections have not been held for over two decades now as Sonia Gandhi has been exercising her prerogative to nominate all working committee members.

The question is why is the Congress afraid of internal polls? A senior Congress leader, who is pushing for internal elections, put it succinctly, “An election will put an end to the coterie culture in the party,” Or maybe, Rahul Gandhi was not confident that younger leaders of his choice would be able to make the cut when pitted against senior leaders in an election.

Blaming CWC Polls For Rao, Kesri Fates

There is no denying that the leadership is more comfortable with nominated persons as it gives them an opportunity to pack this all-important panel with his or her loyalists who will not go against the official line or ask uncomfortable questions. And most importantly, they are not leaders in their own right but are dependent on the largesse of the party chief.

It would appear Sonia Gandhi took a lesson from P.V.Narasimha Rao and Sitaram Kesari’s experiences. Rao had put his best democratic foot forward when he gave his nod for an election to the working committee at the 1992 Tirupati plenary session when he was Prime Minister. But he quickly changed tack when stalwarts like Arjun Singh, Sharad Pawar and Ghulam Nabi Azad won the working committee membership in a contest. This demonstrated their hold over the organisation and had the potential of creating alternative power centres.

Fearing that an elected position placed them at a distinct advantage, Rao asked them to resign and then nominated them to the working committee to underline that he called the shots. However, this did not put an end to the internal power tussle which led to a split and the formation of Congress (T) when several seniors leaders like Arjun Singh and N.D.Tiwari walked out on Rao. Elections to the working committee were also held in 1997 during Sitaram Kesari’s brief tenure as Congress president but he ended up facing an ignominious exit.

Yes-Men, Yes-Women Go Far

Taking a cue from her predecessors, Sonia Gandhi did not take the election route, preferring to nominate members to the Congress Working Committee. But in this process, the CWC was reduced to a mere rubber stamp. The panel barely met and when it did, the deliberations were carefully choreographed with few instances of members speaking up. Though it is meant to be a forum for serious political discourse where seniors introspect on the party’s failures and propose corrective measures, the CWC has, over the years, been reduced to a forum which only met to endorse a predetermined decision.

Today, the official reason given for avoiding an election is that it would deflect attention from the far more urgent and important task of drawing up a blueprint first for the series of assembly polls this year to be followed by the 2024 Lok Sabha elections. An internal election would necessarily aggravate divisions and factionalism between rival leaders and their supporters which, it is argued, is highly avoidable at this critical juncture when the party is focussed on putting up a credible challenge to the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party. Further, it is said an election does not guarantee adequate representation to women, Dalits, tribals and backward classes.

The same arguments are trotted out each time there is a demand for internal elections. As they say, the more things change, the more they stay the same.

Anita Katyal is a Delhi-based independent journalist. Views are personal and do not represent the stand of this publication.