Lack of hands-on approach hurting Congress

The Congress is contesting the Assembly polls in four states and a UT with a ‘piecemeal’ and ad hoc survival strategy, taking the grand old party from one crisis to the next.

On May 2, 2021, if the Congress fails to dislodge Sarbananda Sonowal in Assam or Pinarayi Vijayan in Kerala, Rahul Gandhi’s prospects of leading a united Congress or returning as the 87th president of the AICC will take a nosedive.

A group of Congress dissenters, known as G-23, is waiting for a poll debacle. Veteran Sharad Pawar has already started floating the trial balloon of a ‘third front’. Pawar’s NCP is a part of the ruling alliance in Maharashtra with the Shiv Sena and the Congress, but the NCP is backing the Left in Kerala and Mamata Banerjee’s Trinamool Congress in West Bengal. Pawar claims to be in talks with different regional political parties over the formation of a ‘third front’ whose objective is to isolate the Congress and take on the Narendra Modi-led BJP-NDA. Pawar has been a daydreamer whose ambition to become the prime minister or leader of the Congress has been in the spirit of Frank Herbert’s observation that often ambitions tend to remain undisturbed by realities.

Rahul Gandhi has spent far too many hours in Kerala, where most opinion poll surveys have given the ruling LDF an edge over the Congress-led UDF.

A worried party leadership is now eyeing Assam as a ‘face-saver’. The Congress is relying heavily on perfume baron Badruddin Ajmal’s All-India United Democratic Front (AIUDF), which has a considerable influence on the Bengali-speaking Muslims of Assam.

However, the Congress’ campaign in Assam is suffering as it does not have a chief ministerial candidate. In fact, in all poll-bound states, the Congress is going without a ‘chehra’ (face), though in Kerala, it is widely assumed that in the event of an electoral success, Oommen Chandy would return as the chief minister. However, K Muraleedharan’s nomination from the prestigious Nemom Assembly seat has generated a lot of interest. Muraleedharan is the son of former Congress Chief Minister

Kannoth Karunakaran and the sitting MP from Vadakara.

The Congress’ Puducherry story is bizarre. Puducherry may be a tiny UT of 30 Assembly seats, but it was considered ‘safe’ until a month ago when Chief Minister V Narayanasamy lost majority on the floor of the House. As if the February 22 setback was not enough, the Congress denied the former chief minister a ticket to contest the Assembly polls. In fact, the seat went to ally DMK’s quota.

Sitting 2,370 km away, the political developments in Puducherry have caused huge resentment at New Delhi’s 24, Akbar Road, the AICC headquarters. Leaders, who do not wish to be named, wonder why Narayanasamy was allowed to continue in office if he was not going to be fielded or lead the party from the front.

Narayanasamy’s in-house bete noire A Namassivayam had left the Congress in February, setting in motion a spate of resignations that led to the fall of the Narayanasamy government in Puducherry.

Apparently, Puducherry had not been a priority for the Gandhis — Rahul and Sonia — who, until November 2020, had relied heavily on Ahmed Patel to look into the political management of UTs like Puducherry. In Patel’s death, Narayanasamy lost his mentor and influential contact in the party’s Delhi durbar.

There are reports that Rahul Gandhi not only got deeply upset with Narayanasamy’s inability to keep his flock together but also his failure to translate a fisherwoman’s complaint accurately. When Rahul was interacting with the fishermen’s community at Nellithope, a woman reportedly had complained to Rahul how the Chief Minister had not come to them during the cyclone. When Rahul turned to the chief minister to know what the middle-aged woman had spoken in Tamil, Narayanasamy is said to have played with words to absolve himself of any laxity, turning the complaint into praise.

The Gandhis’ lack of a hands-on approach is hurting the Congress. Party leaders point out that Capt Amarinder Singh, Bhupesh Baghel and Ashok Gehlot seem to be doing a good job in the party-ruled states (Punjab, Chhattisgarh and Rajasthan, respectively), where they have been projected as credible regional satraps.

After the current round of Assembly polls, the Congress will face elections in six more states: Uttar Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Goa, Punjab, Himachal Pradesh and Gujarat. Except for Punjab, the party lacks a face or a cogent political strategy in these states.

Eyebrows have also been raised over Rahul’s penchant to shoot long video interviews with academics which bring little or nothing for the poll campaign. Congress leaders say Rahul’s election campaign period should have been carefully utilised in the form of interviews with popular TV news channels and leading newspapers of the eastern and southern states. The complaint against Rahul’s philosophical vagaries is that he has not been making significant political points which can provide a last-minute fillip to the Congress’ prospects in Kerala, Assam and Puducherry.

On May 2, the alliance’s potential success in Tamil Nadu would not suffice as it would be more of a DMK victory than that of the Congress. Ditto in West Bengal, unless a surprise — a hung House — makes the Congress-Left alliance relevant.