The Congress has damaged its own future and made BJP oppositionless

The Congress, both in Goa and Delhi, has made BJP’s dominance as the ruling party all too easy. In fact, the BJP only needs to maintain the Congress as it is, to guarantee long-term success. 

The Goa Assembly results threw up what sounded peculiar. The BJP got the seats the Congress was supposed to get (20) and the Congress got seats that the BJP was expected to (11). How did this about-turn or total U-turn happen?

Quite simply, Congress refused to take hard decisions. Like changing the PCC president Girish Chodankar before the elections and having a dynamic campaign team. Secondly, the Congress clearly left a lot of their loyal cadre and up-and-coming leadership in the cold. Thirdly it effectively began the game of sidelining a section of the senior leadership that saw both Luizinho Faleiro and Ravi Naik leaving the party. At the same time, many senior organisation people also left the party weakening it to the core.

The people of Goa wanted a strong Congress and the Voice of Goa expressed this to none other than Rahul Gandhi

On behalf of the people of Goa, the Voice of Goa, in a discussion to understand the Congress’ preparedness for the Assembly polls, met and told Rahul Gandhi of the serious problems his party had in Goa. One of the basic concerns was the leadership, the nonfunctioning or nonexistence of frontal organisations, the lack of a coordinated plan of vision for the elections, and no effort to develop leadership.

Rahul Gandhi seemed to hear and mentioned that he would inform P Chidambaram and address these issues advising his guests from Goa who met him to speak to Mr. Chidambaram in Goa. But in Goa, it was clearly evident that decisions were taken not to do anything, have the same leadership, and not spend too much time in revamping the party structure. That was the time one clearly realised that the will and the interest to take on the BJP in the manner that it was needed to fight an opponent that is so powerful and with limitless resources, was just not there.

Mr. Chidambaram himself has stated that that till six months before the elections none of the blocks (equivalent to an assembly constituency) had any block-level organisation. Barely ahead of the polls 30 of these were constituted. But the mere constitution did not mean that the blocks were functioning. In many cases, candidates were thrust upon the blocks which simply had no time to be battle-ready for the elections. And there were at least ten constituencies where the party literally had no grassroots presence.

With this kind of electoral preparedness and with frontal organisations not in sync, is it any surprise 

that the Congress did not 

manage to consolidate the anti-incumbency vote allowing parties like the AAP and the RG to get votes of those who would have otherwise voted for a strong candidate?

THE CONG HAS NO RIGHT TO BLAME ANYONE FOR THEIR VOTE LOSS WHEN ITS OWN HOUSE WAS IN TOTAL DISORDER

Girish Chodankar is a great one for “offering” but never really makes good that offer to resign. His offer, many have said in jest, is like a tease or like that historical play by Samuel Becket Waiting for Godot where the two principal characters wait for the mysterious Godot, who never arrives. Similarly, the GPCC president’s actual resignation’s actual acceptance and the choice of a new president has been one of Goa’s enduring political mysteries.

The irony is that the Congress has very few choices to succeed him

So bare is the ladder of leadership in the Congress that if they have to pick a president who is not an MLA (since this is full-time 24×7 job and the one person one post must apply) that the choice narrows down to Surendra Furtado a veteran backroom person who has been a loyalist with a fair amount of administrative experience, or Ramakant Khalap. The younger lot needs to marinate in the political juices to be cooked for this role. The bright sparks like Yatish Naik who could have been groomed into this role or his onetime mentor Luizinho Faleiro are not in the party, while Sankalp Amonkar and Adv Carlos Fereira are both in the Assembly. 

But can you blame Girish when his super boss Rahul Gandhi is no different?

The only success that the All India Congress in the past decade has been winning the States of Chattisgarh, Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh. Since then, Madhya Pradesh has been lost, Rajasthan has been in the grip of infighting while Chhattisgarh is hanging on. However, in the Loka Sabha elections which followed, the BJP swept these three states where it won 61 MP seats. How many MP seats did the Congress win, in the same states where it won the Assembly elections a couple of years ago? Three.

In the recent UP elections, why did Congress even try and show up? It contested 399 seats, won just 2, and lost its deposit in 387.

Rahul Gandhi and his family have single-handedly taken Congress to such a level that even getting up for a fight is out of the question. They certainly are nice, decent, and respectable people but then running a party is not a popularity contest.

And one of the biggest signs that the party does not evoke confidence among the people is that in Goa, in spite of not giving tickets to defectors and taking a pledge that no Congress MLA would defect, those who did not want to vote for BJP, in many seats, voted for other parties.

It is staring at such decimation that its only role seems to be to keep the BJP in power by its losing performance and becoming the single biggest contributor to opposition disunity.

There is only and only one way out. That Rahul Gandhi just leaves the party and politics and hopes that the goodwill the Congress still has can be kindled with new leadership with new hope. Rahul Gandhi’s permanent resignation will be his biggest contribution.