First time ever, Congress without a Gandhi face!

 

Lok Sabha elections will be declared in the next few days. During this election, it is almost decided that for the third time in a row, voters will go in for the Bharatiya Janata Party led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi. It has also been asserted in numerous surveys that public favours Narendra Modi’s leadership. It is interesting to note that the I.N.D.I Alliance, which was formed to oppose Narendra Modi’s leadership, failed. Congress has been offered just one seat in Delhi and none in Punjab (as AAP has declared to run for all 13 seats) thus highlighting how insignificant the Congress is for Arvind Kejriwal and his AAP.

Similarly, Mayawati has already announced that she will run independently rather than join the I.N.D.I Alliance, while Mamata Banerjee has offered the Congress only two seats in West Bengal. No matter how much these parties say they are united against the BJP within their alliance, the moment seat-sharing issue is raised, they will all aim to secure as many seats as they can. Another distinguishing feature of this election is that for the first time, Congress will be contesting it with a face other than the Gandhi clan. A few days ago, it was declared that I.N.D.I Alliance will run in the poll under the guidance of Mallikarjun Kharge. The Congress was compelled to decide against Rahul or Priyanka taking over as leaders of the I.N.D.I Alliance as voters had rejected Rahul Gandhi in two successive Lok Sabha elections. Congress seems to have come to a realisation that it will not be appropriate to run his name in the next elections. Sonia Gandhi filed her nomination for the Rajya Sabha from Rajasthan and not run for the Lok Sabha seat from Uttar Pradesh. Neither Congress prince Rahul nor Sonia Gandhi will contest from Amethi and Raebareli respectively. Predictions indicating his return to Wayanad demonstrate that the Congress leadership left the field before the Lok Sabha election procedures could start. It may be recalled that the Congress had won three straight Lok Sabha elections from 1952 to 1962 under Pandit Nehru’s leadership. But later, Nehru’s leadership legacy began to wane and now it is pointless to get into its specifics at this stage. The interesting point is that the Congress, which having ruled for a long time, is now compelled to break free from the Gandhi family's sway.

Over the last decade, Narendra Modi has also delivered a devastating blow to the Congress’s dynasty politics. The party has also seen an uprise against Gandhi family’s monopoly. Despite the involvement of numerous leaders and revolutionaries, the country’s freedom struggle was always attributed to the Gandhi family. The party disregarded contributions made by several revolutionary leaders like Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose. But the Modi government dutifully elevated Netaji’s efforts by building an imposing memorial in Delhi. During Congress’s regime, numerous government institutions and awards and recognitions were restricted to the names of members of the Gandhi family both at the Centre and in numerous states.

Between 1991 and 1996, when the nation was facing dire economic circumstances, PV Narsimha Rao, a real Congressman who launched India's new economic policy to rescue the almost bankrupt nation from economic collapse, denied to before to the Gandhi family in certain issues. As a result, after his demise, his corpse was not permitted to enter Congress headquarters in Delhi.

And today, the Modi government conferred the Bharat Ratna as a tribute to this visionary statesman.

The Gandhi family presided over the Congress from 1978 to October 2023 except from 1992 to 1998 when the party’s presidential reign was in the hands of PV Narsimha Rao and Sitaram Kesari. From pre-independence period till the 70s, elections were conducted to legitimately choose the national executive and party president. Later, when Indira Gandhi took the party reigns, she got only those leaders who would never oppose her or the national executive committee and Rajiv and Sonia Gandhi also continued the same practice.

The second election of the Congress executive was held during a convention in 1997 in Calcutta (now Kolkata). In this election, Ahmad Patel, Jitendra Prasad, Madhav Rao Scindia, Tariq Anwar, Pranab Mukherjee, RK Dhawan, Arjun Singh, Ghulam Nabi Azad, Sharad Pawar and Kotala Vijaya Bhaskar Reddy won. In 1998, when Sonia Gandhi was to be made the party president, Sitaram Kesari was locked up inside a bathroom for hours as he had refused to resign from his presidential position, an extremely cruel treatment for such a high-ranking leader. The party was choking on democracy and its ideals the moment it began working in accordance with Gandhi family’s desires.

After the assassination of Rajiv Gandhi in 1991, Narsimha Rao was made the Prime Minister and Congress president because of his seniority. Rao, unlike other leaders, was expected not to challenge Sonia Gandhi. In 1992, Rao declared elections for the Congress executive committee and for the state committees during the party’s national convention held in Tirupati. As the party president, Rao was confident that his activists would emerge victorious. But, his rivals Rajesh Pilot, Arjun Singh and Sharad Pawar also won. But when Sonia Gandhi became the party president, this practice stopped. Now, in the backdrop of this election, if things continue to change within this party, that was previously operated at the whims of a single family and had long stifled internal democracy, we can only hope that Congress once again becomes the party of the common activists, thus contributing to enriching the country’s democracy.

 

(Article Pre-Published in Times of India Online – 19 February 2024)

Keshav Upadhye, Chief Spokesperson