Editorial Note
Congress had a tryst with destiny to transform, to open a window to renaissance and in all probability, have lost it.
The writing was on the wall before the Congress presidential election results were declared today. To the utter dismay of Congress party’s young blood and millions of party sympathizers, and to the grim delight of veteran congressmen of Kerala, Shashi Tharoor, the eminent candidate for the posts lost to Mallikarjun Kharge, an octogenarian Congress leader hailing from Karnataka. The landslide victory for Kharge, who received 7,897 votes of the total polled 9385 is not a testimony to his popularity, capabilities and administrative brilliance, but rather a reward for the unwavering loyalty to the Gandhi dynasty, who could now hold the reins of the party ever more securely, tightly, aggressively and subtly through the services of a proxy in power. In the twilight of his career and life, while Kharge could enter history books as one of the few South Indians elevated to the coveted post of Congress President, the functional reality is akin to the ceremonial role held by Queen Elizabeth over the Commonwealth of Nations. More than the Commonwealth needing the Queen, the opposite of the Queen needing the Commonwealth was true. Similarly, Congress party needed a servile, loyal face only to prove the detractors wrong that the party lacks internal democracy and its alleged authoritarian style, dynastic influence. If Kharge and other party loyalists believe that finally winds of change have blown, heralding a new dawn, he could revisit history and take a leaf out of UPA I & II playbook or perhaps consult with Dr. Manmohan Singh on the art of puppetry and subjugation by the real custodians of the strings.
Ever since the iron lady of Congress, the erstwhile prime minister and scion of Congress dynasty, Mrs. Indira Gandhi split the party in 1969, there hasn’t been many elections conducted to elect the party president. Rajiv Gandhi, immediately after the dastardly assassination of his mother, rode on a tidal wave of national grief and political vacuum and was elected unanimously, the realpolitik end could have been the vote bank of a gullible electorate. Sitaram Kesari was unceremoniously removed in 1998, two years into his 5-year tenure. Sonia Gandhi’s elevation was a bloodless coup in 1998 but trounced her challenger Jitendra Prasad in the 2000 election, polling over 99% votes. Rahul Gandhi was elected to the post unopposed in 2017 and the mother-son duo headed the Congress for 24 long years capitalizing on the subservience and ignominious loyalty of the party leaders in its upper echelons to dynastic rule.
The first rule of reforming a well-entrenched entity, whether a political party, an organization or a family owned businesses is to infuse fresh intellectual capital and ideas, ideally from the outside. Shashi Tharoor was the ideal fit by virtue of his global exposure, attuned to the best practices in governance as a distinguished global diplomat, innovative thinker coupled with a resolute will to liberate the party from the corroding clutches of reactionary politics. He could have reinvented the party into a cadre system, where grassroots level workers aspirations to ascend the party hierarchy and adorn coveted positions could have become a reality in the future. Turnaround solutions in business and in life are centered on impartial assessment of the root cause of the problem, listing the top three or five existential issues to be addressed or critical objectives to be achieved, and sequentially manage, review and control the implementation of changes. The fundamental issue on the Congress party list is the lack of fresh perspectives and radical thinking to take the party and the country into the challenges of the 21st century dynamics, driven by rapid advancement in technologies. When the primary issue is unattended, all the sequential activities in the value chain are futile. The time was opportune for appointing a visionary leader, an erudite scholar, a cosmopolitan with global connections and influence like Shashi Tharoor to be at the helm who could have ironed out a progressive manifesto, both for the party and for the nation. But the party has ruined another opportunity to reach another milestone and its penchant for octogenarians clutching on to power remains unchanged. Juxtapose this trend with BJP’s policy of retiring its leaders at maximum 75 years. Senior KPCC officials will sleep peacefully henceforth, who were afflicted by insomnia at the prospect of Tharoor becoming the party president, bypassing their seniority and gargantuan egos.
If Kharge is not empowered to lead the party and to eschew its straitjacket thinking through autonomous decision making, it would aggravate the already unassailable task of combating the NDA juggernaut in the 2024 general elections. The most critical aspect was to re-instill confidence in the party with the Indian electorate that an outlier with a new wave of thinking and dissociated from dynastic control was an indispensable elect. Dr. Shashi Tharoor was the ideal candidate from a populist position, being charismatic and articulate, media savvy with 8.4 million Twitter followers, who could have brought back the disgruntled senior congress leaders defected to opposition camps, owing to autocratic leadership of Sonia Gandhi. Though Tharoor is not a North Indian insider with native intelligence, he represents ambition, aspiration, change and dynamism- a far cry from the tired, senile and intellectually fatigued Congress octogenarians- which, the Indian middle class, disenchanted with the economic policies of the incumbent NDA and aggrieved by rising inflation and unemployment would have contended to experiment with, against the formidable Modi-Shah combine. In its present form, structure and functioning, the Indian middle class doesn’t see Congress as a viable alternative to the BJP.
The Indian electorate was looking for a Congress president outside the wily intrigues of the internal party apparatus, that has incidentally brought the grand old party to its knees. Indians desired a reinvention of the party and not reinstating the status quo, like old wine in a new bottle. The masses are disconcerted with inbreeding, infighting, insincerity and embittered by scores of elected congress representatives defecting like Judas for silver coins. Congress had a tryst with destiny to transform, to open a window to renaissance and in all probability, have lost it. And it remains to be seen if the gathering dust will eclipse the party in toto…