The way Rahul Gandhi has worked overtime to destabilise the party-run government in Punjab has put a big question mark on the Gandhi family’s abilities to provide leadership or revive the sagging morale of the Congress rank and file. This also brings us to the moot question: Is the family interest larger than the party? Or, is the family the party now?
After making Navjot Singh Sidhu the state party president to oust the party-run government under Captain Amarinder Singh, the Congress leadership had calculated that Sidhu’s antics would force the Captain to resign. But the old horse had turned the tables and exposed the hollowness of the central leadership in understanding the political situation or applying correctives.
The duo of Rahul Gandhi and Priyanka Gandhi Vadra has been caught in a bind. The loud motor-mouth Sidhu has actually landed himself in a soup by challenging the leadership if he was not given a free hand, leaving none in doubt that he could precipitate the crisis. Who to tame? The old guard, who is a loyalist or the likely Frankenstein monster? In the meantime, the Congress’ in-charge for the state Harish Rawat has declared that the party would contest the next Assembly elections under the leadership of Amarinder Singh. One wonders what the fuss was all about. Why an attempt was made to oust a chief minister who gave the Congress a landslide by winning 77 of the 117 Assembly seats in 2017. It appears that the octogenarian chief minister has clearly outmaneuvered Sidhu and has staved off the challenge, at least for now.
The larger issue for Indian politics is complete failure of the dynastic leadership to demonstrate their political skills and utter helplessness in taming the chief minister. Rahul Gandhi is either too arrogant to understand the complexities of intra-party dynamics or he is too incapable to provide solutions.
A dynast cannot accept any leader unless he genuflects before the dynasty. When then Prime Minister Dr Manmohan Singh had begun to show his teeth, Sonia Gandhi and her coterie did everything to tame him. When Dr Singh was scheduled to meet then US President Barack Obama in Washington in 2013, Rahul Gandhi tore the copy of the Ordinance piloted by Dr Singh showing who the real boss was. This was a huge embarrassment to the Prime Minister. The National Advisory Council chaired by Sonia Gandhi tried to run a parallel government by setting the agenda. She functioned as the Super PM.
The Congress is owned by the family and none else can run it. The dynasty must be cajoled, appeased and propitiated for legitimacy. This is the message Rahul Gandhi and Priyanka Vadra have sent through Punjab. Sending Navjot Singh Sidhu as state party president was a clear signal to go and fight it out and disturb the chief minister if he wanted to stay politically relevant.
Otherwise, who could justify the demand for a change of leadership six months closer to elections. Either the government has done well or has not done well. You cannot do image makeover simply by changing the head. And what message the family wants to send by condoning public criticism of the party-run government. The issues raised by Sidhu as state party chief against a party run government would provide weapons to the opposition during elections.
Sidhu was nothing but an arsenal in the armory to attack the chief minister, to humiliate him publicly and provoke him to resign. A loud motor-mouth that Sidhu is, he did his job with aplomb but got caught in the web due to his proclivity to thump his chest while addressing the gallery. The chief minister knew how to tame his bête noire. Sidhu’s advisors did their best to expose his wounds by expressing their love for Pakistan and their controversial stand on Kashmir that went against the country’s official stand. The chief minister pointed out that the statements were against the official party line and the advisers needed to be tamed. Pressure was put on Sidhu to sack them.
When Sidhu found that he was not getting the support that he anticipated, he issued a veiled threat to the central leadership that he could create trouble if he was not given a free hand in taking decisions. Sidhu failed to realise that the family does not wield the same influence that it did some time back.
Rahul Gandhi has had an axe to grind against Amarinder Singh ever since Singh forced the hands of the high command to appoint him as the state party chief in 2015. Singh had reportedly threatened to form his own party. Eventually he became the state party chief and went on to win 2017 Assembly polls for the Congress. Also, Singh’s saner advice to Rahul Gandhi that he should learn from experienced leaders and that he needed to be rooted to the ground did not go well with the dynast for whom what he says should be the law.
Factionalism in politics is something that needs to be reconciled through maturity and experience. If leadership starts playing favourites, it can have a damaging effect on decision making and also the morale of those who make the party strong through a strong support base. This is more so when you are in opposition since options are limited.
Rahul Gandhi would do well to learn from the BJP that runs on ideological moorings of its supporters. Whoever becomes the chief minister would not matter since he or she would implement the party’s agenda. If the person fails to implement the agenda, he can be asked to quit and work for the party. The person knows that in absence of party support, it is difficult to run the show so he bows down irrespective of popularity.
Rahul Gandhi’s style creates enemies out of friends. Captain Amarinder Singh at best can be described as a family loyalist and he has heaped high praise on Sonia Gandhi and even Rahul Gandhi. He did not wish to contest the Lok Sabha polls from Amritsar in 2014, but accepted in deference to the wishes of Sonia Gandhi. What happens if Rahul Gandhi cannot give respect to even such a party loyalist?
It is public knowledge how Rahul Gandhi insulted Hemant Biswa Sarma when he was in the Congress. Rather than listening to the issues of leadership in Assam at a meeting in 2015, Rahul Gandhi fed his dog Pidi and asked Assam leaders to resolve their issues and not to disturb him. Sarma was given his dues in the BJP and is the chief minister of Assam now.
The story of Congress is the same everywhere. People leave the party with a heavy heart when they find that the leadership is a complete failure and would not allow any regeneration. Jyotiraditya Scindia walking out of the Congress and joining the BJP was something one could not imagine till it happened. Whether it was Rajasthan some time back or Chhattisgarh now, the story is the same. Complete failure to intervene at the right time and say enough is enough.
But such moral force comes only when you work hard to revive the party. Politics is not a part-time affair where you can have your personal luxuries and yet claim to be a serious player. Rahul Gandhi is not seen in serious political fights. He appears to be so impressed after giving anti-Modi statements that he may start thinking this to be a substitute for action in the field.
The Congress has lost the ability to create any political narrative that it can sustain in a long run. It jumps on the shoulders of others thinking that this would provide the right platform to oppose. The end result is flippant political gestures and the tag of being a non-serious player.
Driven by insecurities, the Gandhi family is losing its grip on the country’s politics. Rahul Gandhi and Priyanka Gandhi Vadra are not even aware that they are not getting any traction by criticising the Prime Minister on every issue. There has not been one issue on which they have been able to hold on to the ground. They have the options to listen to saner advice from veterans in the party. But the pride of the family and ego that it has given three Prime Ministers to the country—Jawaharlal Nehru, Indira Gandhi and Rajiv Gandhi—are too high.
The writer is the convener of the Media Relations Department of the BJP and represents the party as a spokesperson on TV debates. He has authored the book ‘Narendra Modi: The Game Changer’. Views expressed are writer’s personal.
A dynast cannot accept any leader unless he genuflects before the dynasty. When then Prime Minister Dr Manmohan Singh had begun to show his teeth, Sonia Gandhi and her coterie did everything to tame him. When Dr Singh was scheduled to meet then US President Barack Obama in Washington in 2013, Rahul Gandhi tore the copy of the Ordinance piloted by Dr Singh showing who the real boss was. This was a huge embarrassment to the Prime Minister. The National Advisory Council chaired by Sonia Gandhi tried to run a parallel government by setting the agenda. She functioned as the Super PM.