The Congress finally has a non-Gandhi president, but it is a Gandhi who is walking all over the country on a mission to join India calling it Bharat Jodo.
The irony is that his partymen, all over India, including, and especially, in Goa, are on a totally opposite mission- Congress todo (break). And their success is visible not just in the defeat of the Congress in Goa, but its decimation almost out of existence electorally.
In states where the Congress has been defeated resoundingly be it Gujarat or Goa, the underlying factor has been consistent. The collapse of the local organization, no local leadership, and the politics of deal-making have led to elections becoming irrelevant along with the Congress with Congress MLAs either supporting the BJP or joining them after elections, a constant.
Goa Congress: A basket case of disunity, deals and defections
Goa has been a basket case where this has been repeated. It failed to form a government in spite of being in a position of getting a clear majority under the leadership of Luizinho Faleiro, in 2017. The then AICC general Secretary in charge of Goa Digvijay Singh supervised the process of freezing the Congress efforts and managing to get the BJP in through the back door.
In utter frustration, Faleiro who had brought Congress to power and was about to formalise it, resigned as president.
Churchill Alemao who got elected from Benaulim in 2017 on an NCP ticket, actually revealed that many people like him who were sure to win were not given Congress tickets. “Digvijay Singh asked me to join Vijay Sardesai’s party contest in that ticket. I said no and then what happened, his party supported the BJP.”
From a strength of 17 post counting and with a surety of 23 MLAs in the ruling formation, the Congress not only failed to get power but within no time got reduced to 3. In 2022, it repeated these antics albeit with 11 MLAs who went to religious shrines and promised the people that no MLA would defect.
At that time, it also received total support from faithful institutions which went beyond their call of duty to back the Congress both overtly and covertly.
But with subsequent developments, the party and its faithful backers lost faith of the people
Yet again, it couldn’t protect its MLAs and faced a mass defection of MLAs led by Digambar Kamat who spearheaded group visits of candidates to religious spots to take the divine pledge of loyalty. After the betrayal of both the party and their oath in front of the Gods, Kamat revealed his internal connections with the powers up above and claimed that he has got the blessings to go against his own promises to the very Gods. Goans were not amused.
Can a broken party join India? Not until a failed ‘high command’ stops presiding over the party’s demolition in the States
What is the lesson that we learnt from Goa then and from Gujarat now? If the state unit and all its functionaries remain together and contest elections with honesty, and handle the poll scenario with a party-first mentality, Congress wins not only seats but gets a vote share. In states where it does not, the blame game starts including the division of votes narrative, without admitting that if the Congress itself was strong and seen as the principal challenger, it would still get consolidated anti-BJP votes.
If there are power-hungry and deal-making elements, then neither are election results guaranteed nor is the loyalty of MLA ever ready to defect and migrate. Look at the Goa Congress under the long tenure of Girish Chodankar, who after Luizinho Faleiro’s remarkable resurrection of the party, reversed the growth and pushed the Congress into the proverbial political gutter.
After being removed as GPCC president, Chodankar still continues to work as a power centre giving statements on behalf of the party and acting as if he’s still the GPCC president. The GPCC president Amit Patkar must clarify if the Power of Attorney of the GPCC presidentship has been given to Chodankar by him. And interestingly, irrespective of the health and prosperity of the Congress, Girish Chodankar has always prospered, also drawing on the patronage of Rahul Gandhi, whose office and its staff he is close to. Does it matter then, what happens to the party?
GUJARAT: Cong won just 17 out of 156 seats, its lowest ever. It’s too embarrassed to call itself an opposition
The Congress looked absolutely helpless in Gujarat
As the results were coming in, the Congress office was deserted in Gandhinagar, there was no leadership to even gather the cadre and express remorse and look ahead. At times mandates can make a party feel hopeless. But the Congress is also helpless to arrest the slide, and that it is a bigger fear because there are lakhs and lakhs of people in India who still believe in the Congress, but the Congress does not believe in working to get their confidence back
Rajasthan: Where CM Ashok Gehlot calls his senior party colleague Sachin Pilot “gaddar” (traitor)
Rajasthan is a classic case of the party in deterioration. There is no party. There are two warring groups headed by Sachin Pilot and Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot who has called his former Deputy CM “gaddar” traitor. Sachin Pilot and Ashok Gehlot didn’t even walk with Rahul Gandhi jointly during his ongoing Bharat Jodo Yatra.
What is therefore the lesson here? That if the party is broken, it cannot join India. On the other hand, wherever the state unit has fought elections without the “High command” getting into the scheme of things, Congress has won. Rajasthan, at a time they won and before the infighting started, ditto for Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, and now Himachal Pradesh are prime examples.
In Himachal Pradesh, interestingly, the BJP acted just the way the Congress did in states they were defeated- by carrying the baggage of rebellion and infighting. The BJP had rebels on 21 out of 68 seats. At the same time, the Congress state unit made this about local people and local elections picking candidates without high command influence. The BJP on the other hand rejected ground-level recommendations and had to obey their high command’s diktat on many candidates. The result is there for all to see.
Finally, one thing is clear. Unless there is honesty in the party’s approach to its people, tricks will not work. The people of India see through the dishonesty and deal-making of any party. And with absolutely no leadership, the Congress is drifting aimlessly in an ocean hoping for the winds to steer it to safety. But political storms keep damaging the boat in which it sails, as a precursor to its eventual sinking, if someone doesn’t take charge.
