Indian National Congress, its heir apparent, and Indian politics

 Indian National Congress, Its Heir Apparent, and Indian Politics


Congress party’s debacle in the recently concluded state elections was on expected lines for many independent observers like me who watch politics from a distance.  The party, which governed India, like always, baring few aberrations here and there, is today struggling to survive.

To begin with, during post-independence era, Congress ruled the country without a hitch because of lack of credible opposition.  The sympathy wave post deaths of its leaders too brought it back to power twice.  It faced real opposition only in the late 70s. Then, the only instance when the opposition was able to complete its full term was from 1998 to 2004 when Shri Atal Bihari Vajpayee became the prime minister and completed its full term.  Therefore, by and large, Congress really had its way when it came to ruling the country.

The Nehru-Gandhi family has had always been the glue of the party, and things have always revolved around it.  This has encouraged sycophancy, which in turn has made the party vulnerable to management problems like poor decision making.

Some musty decisions taken in the near past have cost the party heavily.  This took away all the goodwill it enjoyed during UPA1.  The staleness was evident when Congress party announced quota for Muslims of UP.  Muslims understood their fallacious intent and completely shunned the Congress party.  Nevertheless, UP campaign of the party was very aggressive, but without genuineness and was always viewed with a doubt by the UP voter.  Instead an honest appeal to the voters without any political posturing could have garnered them more votes.  In fact, Mr. Rahul Gandhi would have done much better without Digvijay Singh and Salman Khurshid in UP. 

Sycophants usually lack talent and leadership qualities.  Look around any Gandhi and you will see people with zero mass appeal. This style of functioning has created a void between its voters and central leadership. The void became so deep and wide that The Gandhis couldn’t save their own turf.

Another issue Congress has is lethargy.  They take ages to take decisions.  UPA-1 in its common minimum program promised to spent 6% on education and 2-3% on healthcare.  Other issues like administrative reforms, judicial reforms, panchayati raj, women reservation, separate Telangana state have been in limbo, even after eight long years.

Dynastic politics, due to its very existence at the top, is something that Congress has not been able to discourage in the party. This has also alienated the voters.  Goa is a classic example of this with 11 out of 40 seats went to few families of Congress members.  This made voters angry, and they aggressively voted against the party.

Congress party’s heir apparent, Mr. Rahul Gandhi, should start doing things on his own and stop taking advice from others.  After all, he is in his 40s and can understand good versus evil.  He should take control, come out in the open, deal with the issues head on, make some mistakes, and learn from them.  He should brew his own ideas instead of following others.  He should think and should act like a leader if he wishes to be one.

Congress might face tough times going forward.  BJP, on the other hand, doesn’t look very strong and therefore we may not see coalition politics ending very soon, ahh!  What a pity?

State Elections 2012 – Who is the real winner?

 State Elections 2012 - Who Is The Real Winner?

The state elections of 2012 that took place this week are finally over.  Five states went to polls and out of them, two (Punjab and Goa) clearly went in favor of the BJP.  One, Uttarakhand is tied very closely and could go either way.  Only Manipur gave the Congress something to smile about.  Uttar Pradesh once again brought back to power, a regional party and completely ignored the national parties.  BJP and Congress expectedly finished third and fourth respectively.

These state elections left the Congress party in a very bad shape.  For political parties, losing and winning elections is the part of the game, but the manner in which Congress lost the election cannot just be ignored and needs serious introspection by the congress top brass.

Let’s take Punjab first; they could not throw out the incumbent government of the Akalis even though Punjab has a history of replacing governments every 5 years.  In Goa, Congress was in power and were defeated convincingly by the BJP.  State of Congress is so unfriendly in Goa that a so-called right-wing Hindu party got votes from the Catholics of Goa.  The anger and frustration against the incumbent Congress was also evident from an unprecedented 82% voter turnout this time. The real Congress’ debacle came from UP, and this very much establishes the fact that something is horribly wrong with the Congress.  In UP, the party was unable to even save its bastion like Rai Bareli, Amethi, and Sultanpur.  Out of the 15 assembly seats from these areas, it could only manage to win just 2.

Congress itself is to blame for this poor showing.  Today the party is behaving like an arrogant fat cat that drinks milk with closed eyes and roars if you interrupt.  Several corruption scams came up during its regime.  Instead of dealing corruption head on, they tried to defame those who were fighting for corruption.  The way they handled Baba Ramdev and Team Anna and the whole Lokpal episode has not gone down well.  Every time you can close your eyes like a cat when you steal the milk, but you cannot fool the people all the time.  Corruption may not be as big an issue as an inflation or governance, but it nags with the subconscious mind of an average voter.  Congress has failed to acknowledge the fact that it is seriously tainted and needs immediate corrective steps.  An arrogant Congress drank bad milk and now is complaining of stomach ache and may fall very sick if not treated immediately.  They should immediately consider demands of the civil society of an effective Lokpal and come out clean against corruption in order to change its image.  Another reason for the poor performance is the lack of trust of the people in Congress.  After many attempts to woo the Muslim voters, the party has failed to convince them. It needs to correct this trust deficit.

The BJP, on the other hand, may find solace that it has done pretty well by grabbing Goa from the Congress party and keeping Punjab in its belt, but BJP too is crippled with several issues like lack of strong leadership in the center and lack of rural presence.  Mr. Advani has a very low visibility and appeal among the masses.  Mr. Modi is not acceptable to many political parties.  The second-line leadership is extremely talented and deserves to come forward, but needs direction from the RSS.  The magical spurt in BJP’s tally when counting began in UP and then the sudden slowdown demonstrates the BJP is largely a party with an urban presence.  It needs to touch base with the rural masses in order to improve its tally.  How can a national party in India do well if it has a low-rural base?

There are a few winners of this election like election commission, but the real winner of this election is the voter who once again managed to establish that he is supreme by voting out corrupt and arrogant governments.  Rahul Gandhi might have lost the election, but he has won many hearts.  Also, winners are well-educated, fluent, English-speaking candidates from UP. They are refreshingly new faces which bring hope for UP and make us believe that India is changing.