With Congress interim president Sonia Gandhi sparing no efforts to revive the party, inept handling of important organisational matters by some leaders of her team continues to spoil her plans.
These strategists, with less political exposure, in the core Congress team keep committing one mistake or the other while planning a party programme, leading to the embarrassment for the leadership.
This is the reason why the party’s strategy to raise the issues of farmers, atrocities on women and Dalits could not make the desired impact. The recent example of inept handling programme schedule came to the fore when AICC general secretary in charge of organisation, K.C. Venugopal, sent the dates of agitational activities to various state units, which had to be changed later on. He scheduled two big programmes for 25 October, which happens to be Dussehra, and 14 November, which is the day of Diwali.
The programmes were circulated to the state units without considering that two big festivals coincide with them. But the dates were changed in the meeting of general secretaries which was chaired by Sonia Gandhi on Sunday. Sources said that it was embarrassing for the leadership as the schedules had been issued by the general secretary in charge of party organisation. Apart from this, the signature campaign against farm laws is not also picking up the way Sonia had expected. Sonia had to instruct the general secretaries to personally ensure that it gets accelerated in a time-bound manner.
What is more interesting is that the Congress chose to be silent on how to carry forward the movement, which was started by Rahul Gandhi against farm laws. Sonia Gandhi wants to make it a big issue. After her instruction, the Congress has now decided to take out tractor rallies in every state against farm laws. This programme will be held from 1 November to 10 November. The effort is being made that it is done at the district level also. State in-charges, office-bearers, MPs and MLAs will participate in this rally against the Modi government. Congress will ensure that a large number of farmers participate in the rallies.
Rahul Gandhi successfully organised tractor rallies in Punjab and Haryana early this month. As Sonia wants to mobilise farmers against the government over farm laws, the party has decided to organise dharna and demonstration against agricultural laws on 31 October. The Congress had initially raised the issue of farm laws in a big way but got diverted due to the Hathras incident after some time.
Meanwhile, the Congress has planned to hand over a memorandum carrying two crore signatures of farmers to the President of India. The campaign of collecting signatures has been underway since 1 October. Five thousand signatures have to be collected from every Assembly constituency. Not a single state has been able to meet the target of signature collection so far.
Now, the state units have been asked to submit signatures to incharges by 10 November. More than 25 lakh signatures have to be taken from Uttar Pradesh. Priyanka Gandhi Vadra is the general secretary in charge of UP. Now, the Congress is planning to submit a memorandum carrying these signatures to the President on 19 November, which is the birth anniversary of Indira Gandhi. Earlier, it was to be done on 14 November which was postponed due to Diwali. There is also a doubt about 19 November as well, because on that day programmes are organised in states in memory of former PM Indira Gandhi.
All this goes to suggest how inexperienced strategists are handling the party programme and important matters.
When Rahul and Priyanka hit the street against the Hathras incident, workers were also out accompanying them, but it could not be given much-needed momentum later on. In what suggests improper handling of the party programmes, the Congress is going to hold demonstrations at state party headquarters against the Modi government over the gruesome Hathras episode on 5 November that is one month after the incident. Sonia is trying to strengthen the party, but the Congress under Rahul Gandhi’s guidance could not take forward the issue of farmers the way it did during its agitation against land acquisition bill in 2014. Similarly, it could not make Hathras incident as big as the Nirbhaya case.