Finally the inevitable has happened, Rahul Gandhi has ascended to the top job at the Indian National Congress. The outside world may have their opinion but every true blue Congressman believes they elected their leader in true democratic fashion. So the debate on will he, won’t he, can he, etc, is now put to rest.
Rahul Gandhi as head honcho has a tough job on his hand. He has to revive the grand old party from its slumber. Actually the party was not asleep. It was just that each individual leader put his interests ahead of country and party and the electorate reacted and sent them to the pavilion. The BJP being next in line suddenly found itself in power on a promise of development which the electorate lapped up. Rs 15 lakh in every account could have played a role.
In the assembly election in Goa and Gujarat, it is very clear that the electorate still has some hope in the Congress, they are unhappy at the state of affairs in the region and country and are fighting back. The question that begs to be answered is: “Can the Congress live up to the hopes and aspirations of the people again?”
Well frankly that is not possible with the current crop of dyed in corruption leaders. Take the example of the Assembly in Goa. The Congress had a good chance of forming the government technically, only technically. Had they actually formed the government, it would have collapsed within a few days. Their Assembly members have too many skeletons in the cupboard and they would have had their arm twisted to jump ship or ask for power which would lead to a collapse. The important issue here is the skeletons in the cupboard. This means that at any point in time cases can be filed and the leader would have his hands full and head looking for a compromise. This is the situation across the country and there is hardly any opposition.
The other aspect is that this BJP team (Modi-Shah combine) is focussed on winning at all costs. This includes either compromising the opposition or aligning with them. Again Goa, is a good example, MLAs who at one time had cases filed against them are today BJP MLAs and are singing praises left, right and centre. They have forgotten their own words a few years back. The other way is to engulf the opposition, where the opposition feels the only way forward (no pun intended) is to align with the BJP. This again is easily visible in Goa. The Goa Forward Party opposed almost everything the BJP stood for and is today walking hand in hand with the BJP. There is nothing visible to show that these additions to the BJP have added or changed anything that the BJP stood for. Rightly or wrongly, we are still going with the Centre’s river nationalisation policy, despite diverse political thought being party of the coalition spectrum. The Congress, also the main opposition has no presence as only their untainted members are speaking.
However, this ability to speak up gives us a clue as to who can take on this task of standing up. This task can only be undertaken by those who do not have skeletons in their cupboard. No skeletons means there are no handles to hold and twist. So, the new Congress President has his job cut out, if he stays with the existing satraps and fields them even if the Congress wins, it loses. The other option is choose fresh or new candidates, in that case they run the risk of losing because the ex Congress man has actually used the Congress name to build his own brand and can win on any ticket.
The only option before the new president is to use the adage “new broom sweeps well” and sweep out all the old guard and put in candidates who are talented, educated and fairly young into the electoral arena. These young candidates must have no links with the old war horses if they are to break free from the clutches of past misdeeds. So sons or daughters of fathers who have been MLAs for years will be automatically eliminated. Another section that the Congress should avoid is absorbing candidates who are shopping i.e. moving party to party. This way the Congress will present to the electorate a totally new set free from any taint and thus cannot be arm twisted.
The talent in the old guard can be harnessed in the form of party posts, there will be a lot of kicking and screaming for sure, some will opt out as they never had the party interests in mind at all.
There are many Congressmen who have given the party lots of direction, at the national level there may be more but two come to mind Jyotiraditya Scindia and Sachin Pilot. They should be given pride of place under the new president. Possibly even aligned, so that in the near future they can take over, if required. Now it is time for the new president to shake off the sycophancy culture that has engulfed the Congress and have people of calibre around him.
In Goa there are not many who inspire at present, apart from Aleixo Reginaldo Lourenco who has been carrying the torch almost single handedly, and the new kid on the block Girish Chodankar, who gave a good account of himself in the recent elections.
Is the Congress under Rahul up to it, only time will tell. But in India’s interest we need more than one party that can stand up and take part in the democratic exercise called elections.
(The author prefers to write rather than chat in a balcao)
