The Demise Of The Congress: A Shift In Political Culture

The last two years have been an exciting time in politics, especially for my father’s generation. He has lived most of his life under Congress governments, and the rise of Narendra Modi marks a significant shift for him in the maturity of the Indian polity.

In 2014, while watching the news, we saw how Rahul Gandhi was surrounded by a group of locals in the Congress bastion of Amethi, where they demanded answers from the Congress Vice President on the poor state of the roads and infrastructure in the district. A sheepish Rahul Gandhi replied, “I have sent a letter to the Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh,” which sparked loud rants from the unsatisfied locals.

The visuals ended with Rahul Gandhi darting into his convoy and rushing out of the area. My father remarked, “Twenty years back, no one would have had the guts to approach a Gandhi and demand answers”.

He highlighted that the Congress’ strategy has always been to contest in ‘backward’ and ‘underdeveloped’ seats to curtail any questioning from the electorate. He cited Indira Gandhi’s example, where she contested the rural Chikamaglur seat in Karnataka in 1978 to edge back into the Lok Sabha after losing Rae Bareli in 1977.

Similar to Amethi and Rae Bareli, Chikamaglur didn’t see any advantage of being represented by a Gandhi. The pace of social mobility of the Indian citizen, empowerment factors such as the dissemination of information and the liberation of opinion have had a significant effect on a large section of the electorate.

As a result, politics is changing. The political clout of identity is being gradually eroded and replaced with the clout of performance. For the Congress, it is a difficult lesson to learn as the party has been geared and pushed on the national stage by the identity of a single family.

The party’s crushing defeat in the four recent state elections highlights that it is still clutching to an outdated political strategy where the name ‘Gandhi’ seems enough to clinch power, and no other name is allowed to gain the same if not more influence within the party.

Congress has lost multiple elections since Modi’s ascension, reduced to holding power in just six states, but has made no effort to revamp its organization, even take some basic pointers from the BJP’s relatively successful strategy.

Since 2014, Congress has been in a state of denial, lowering its standard of victory to justify ‘silver linings’ even as it continues to taste defeat. In the MCD by-polls in New Delhi, after winning just four wards, the Congress party argued its resurgence in the national capital after being wiped out from the state assembly.

Congress leader Ajay Maken even went to the extent of thanking Rahul Gandhi for the party’s win in the four wards. The repeated arguments of being a ‘constructive’ Opposition, a marginal ‘rise’ in vote share and repeatedly blaming ‘anti-incumbency’, emphasises the party’s strange comfort with the status quo.

With its dwindling influence, can the Congress argue that it has empowered leaders like the BJP in the big states? Can the Congress argue that it has state leaders with the political track record and image of Shivraj Singh Chouhan, Vasundhara Raje and Raman Singh who have established themselves as regional satraps under the BJP banner?

That argument is difficult for the Congress, as it has always valued loyalty towards the Gandhis over political performance. Consider the BJP’s move in Gujarat, where it is mulling removing Chief Minister Anandiben Patel after the party ceded ground to the Congress in the civic body polls, as well as the backlash over the handling of the Patidar agitation.

Since 2014, has the Congress implemented or even mulled any such course correction? The party’s leaders in big states are practically unknown. They are hardly projected and most of the time they are parachuted in by the High Command.

The party continues to be defined by the Delhi-centric Gandhi family and their band of ‘Yes’ men, as its state units continue to be crippled by a combination of apathy and the onslaught of the BJP and regional forces.

Congress leaders Digvijaya Singh and Satyavrat Chaturvedi have called for a major revamp or ‘cardiac surgery’ of the party organization to change its fortunes in the political battlefield. However, the Congress has always made that argument after a poll loss, and still seems to be stumbling in the dark.

It is evident from the ‘spin’ of the Gandhi sycophants on news channels who repeatedly argue that the party’s clout has not dwindled even as it faces an existential crisis.

The reality is that ‘introspection’ for the Congress has always been to brainstorm how to defend the Gandhis. Till the party breaks that habit, it may one day serve the BJP a ‘Congress Mukt Bharat’ on a silver platter.