Factionalism during the corona crisis

Rasheed Kidwai

Senior journalist and Author

The Congress response to the coronavirus spread and lockdown is layered, but the grand old party’s inability to communicate and the lack of media attention is making it look ineffective and jaded. While AICC’s interim chief Sonia Gandhi has been acting as a field marshal, Rahul Gandhi is working on the Lohiaite principle of opposition for opposition’s sake and Priyanka Gandhi, in the Nehru-Indira Gandhi mould, is offering constructive criticism. This move of the Gandhi trio to act differently is deliberate and strategic.

As an efficient matriarch, Sonia Gandhi is trying to ably marshal her resources. The performance of party chief ministers — Ashok Gehlot, Bhupesh Baghel, Captain Amarinder Singh and V Narayanswamy has been above average in the country’s resolve against the pandemic. Gehlot, Amarinder and Baghel moved quickly treating the pandemic no less than a war. It came as little surprise when the Indian envoy at Ottawa, Ajay Bisaria, shared with Canada the ‘Bhilwara model’ of containing the pandemic. Unlike some others, the chief ministers of Congress-ruled states, have resisted the temptation of playing partisan politics and approached Prime Minister Narendra Modi with some sensible suggestions.

Sonia has appointed several panels and teams to deal with the Covid menace. The party’s control room at 24, Akbar Road, New Delhi had been coordinating with various state units to help out people in distress due to the lockdown, distributing tonnes of grains and essential items on daily basis. But the efforts of Rajiv Satav, Devendra Yadav and Manish Chatrath who are part of the Sonia panel are not finding much mention in mainstream media.

Her penchant for a ‘committee raj’ in the party took away the focus when Sonia recently appointed an 11-member consultative group to formulate the party’s views on corona-related issues. The panel was seen as a barometer of who is in and out in the Congress hierarchy than her bid to position Manmohan Singh, P Chidambaram, Jairam Ramesh and others as credible voices of the party on economy and governance. Perhaps, the party needs to release a daily video of some suggestions and comments made by Manmohan and others, including Rahul Gandhi, who is part of the panel.

Among the three Gandhis in the Congress, Rahul continues to be most adventurous. He has been constantly advised by well-wishers to tone down the criticism of the Modi regime. Rahul has been told that when Bangladesh was created in 1971, Jan Sangh leader Atal Bihari Vajpayee had credited the then Prime Minister Indira Gandhi and described her as ‘Abhinav Chandi Durga’ for defeating Pakistan in the war. However, Rahul, unwilling to let Modi have a larger-than-life image, has been vetoing the suggestion.

In contrast, AICC general secretary Priyanka Gandhi, who looks after Uttar Pradesh, has been occasionally praising BJP Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath’s handling of the corona crisis. Her remarks came after Adityanath instructed state officials to prepare a list of migrant workers from Uttar Pradesh stranded in other states to help bring them back. Priyanka has been regularly writing to the UP Chief Minister. She tweeted in Hindi recently to put on record, “The initiative taken by the Uttar Pradesh government of bringing back stranded migrant workers is laudable. We have been stressing on this issue and this is a positive step in this direction. To ensure that this initiative succeeds fully, the state government must evolve a scheme for the return of the rest of the labour force. If we continue with this positive cooperation in national good, we will gain a lot of strength in our fight against coronavirus.”

Some Congress veterans are however, less than satisfied with this clever interplay of roles by the Gandhis pointing that in the public domain, a far more direct and holistic approach is needed. For them, the focus of attention during the corona pandemic should be on chief ministers of party- ruled states, Manmohan Singh, Chidambaram, Jairam Ramesh and less on the Gandhis. This is a pill that is often talked about in the Congress circles but seldom administered.

After the Madhya Pradesh experience of an abrupt fall of the government, the Congress leadership needs to be far more vigilant and responsive towards factionalism in the party- ruled states. While Punjab is breathing easily on that count, the situation in Rajasthan and Chhattisgarh is getting alarming. Chhattisgarh is one state where the Congress has brute majority, but the one-upmanship between CM Bhupesh Baghel and Health Minister TS Singhdeo over the corona handling is no-holds-barred.

Baghel is said to be wary of Singhdeo, former maharaja of Sarguja who was a strong contender for the chief minister’s post in 2018. Singhdeo supporters claim that at the timing of crowning in December 2018, Baghel was told to share the chief minister’s tenure with senior minister TS Singhdeo on a rotational basis. However, Baghel denies such an arrangement. Politics over corona began in Raipur when Singhdeo started talking to all district collectors and health authorities directly. A missive was issued that only the chief minister had the mandate to convene a meeting of Central service employees, namely, IAS. Next, Singhdeo was seen giving interviews to the national media — TV and print — to showcase the Chhattisgarh achievement in taming the coronavirus. It prompted Baghel’s public relations team to get into an overdrive, arranging a video conference and online interviews that focussed on Baghel as the man in charge of fight against the virus. Both pro and anti-Baghel camps are counting on support from Rahul Gandhi, who has remained aloof and unresponsive.

The disquiet in the Rajasthan Congress is an old story, but party insiders say each gesture of the key players in the state requires closer scrutiny and quick response. A section of the Congress claims that once the lockdown gets over and the corona crisis comes under control, attempts to dislodge Maharashtra, Rajasthan and Chhattisgarh governments would be made in addition to engineering a minor split in the Congress. Would the Gandhis anticipate and act to thwart these attempts?

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