New Delhi: The results of the assembly elections in Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Rajasthan and Telangana are likely to have a bearing on the political futures of many ‘old guards’ in the Congress, including former MP chief ministers Kamal Nath and Digvijaya Singh, and outgoing Rajasthan CM Ashok Gehlot, who are all in their 70’s.
The Congress’s campaigns in Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan were led by party veterans Kamal Nath and Gehlot. Both states were lost to the BJP. While Nath is 77, Gehlot is 72.
In Chhattisgarh, one of Congress’s key faces was 71-year-old T.S. Singhdeo. Much to the party’s surprise, despite Bhupesh Baghel’s seeming popularity, it lost that state too. Singh Deo lost his own seat by a mere 94 votes.
Compare this to the party’s definitive victory in Telangana, where it was led by a young leader with firebrand oratory skills. Revanth Reddy, who is 54 years old, helped the party win a decisive mandate in the state.
According to political analyst Yogendra Yadav, it’s time for the Congress to let its old guard go. “It’s time to get new, young people. But young can’t only be biologically young. They have to bring in something new. They cannot be scions of some dynasty or some family. They have to get people with a new vision,” he told ThePrint.
The election results may also create uncertainty for other Congress leaders in Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan, who have been accused of nepotism and factionalism.
For example, Digvijaya Singh, 76, who wielded considerable influence in the Madhya Pradesh Congress, was seen as playing second fiddle this election. He and Kamal Nath have faced criticism within the party for trying to promote their sons, who are both in politics, sometimes at the cost of the party.
Kamal Nath’s son, Nakul Nath, is a sitting MP, while Digvijaya’s son, Jaivardhan Singh, was a minister in the previous Kamal Nath government.
“Digvijaya first said he’s taking sanyas, but he still wants his Rajya Sabha. He still wants a Cabinet berth for his son who’s a first time MLA. He was instrumental in getting rid of Scindia and establishing himself as number 2 in Madhya Pradesh. All of this came at the cost of the party,” a senior Congress leader and former AICC general secretary told ThePrint.
Notably, most of these leaders were brought into the Congress fold by different generations of the Gandhis.
Kamal Nath’s association with the Congress began due to his friendship with Sanjay Gandhi at Doon School. Gehlot and Digvijaya were the result of Rajiv Gandhi’s efforts to nurture younger leaders. He appointed Gehlot and Singh as MP and Rajasthan Congress chief, respectively, which paved the way for their successful political journey.
C.P. Joshi, 73, the speaker in the outgoing Rajasthan assembly, rose to prominence along with Rahul Gandhi in the Congress. Joshi lost his Nathdwara seat, from where he had been MLA five times.
Rahul had initially groomed Joshi as Gehlot’s successor in the state and later found him a Cabinet minister post in the Manmohan Singh government when he lost by one vote in the 2008 assembly election.
“While some may have lost their seats and others may have not, all of these leaders have lost face in a way,” said a senior party leader, who is also a member of the Congress Working Committee (CWC).
However, like Yadav, the leader also said that they should now voluntarily make way for the next generation of leaders. “The party is having discussions about how to accommodate this older generation and you’ll soon see decisions made to that end.”
The idea of handing over leadership roles to younger generations also resonated with another Congress MP, who told ThePrint that the party needed to implement the Kamaraj Plan. It was a proposal by Congress leader K. Kamraj, who in 1963 said that all senior Congress leaders should resign from their posts to devote all their energy to the revitalisation of the Congress.
“They need to boldly hand leadership in the state to younger leaders. The seniors must be moved to an advisory role,” the MP added.
But not all were on the same page on this. Political analyst and former Congress leader Sanjay Jha believes that “politics is like wine. It gets better with age”.
Speaking to ThePrint he said that the lesson for the Congress in this is that it is not able to leverage and cross-fertilise its organisation. “The party needs to create a robust plan and create a model that can be replicated as much as possible. Political campaigning cannot be done like it was in the past,” he added.
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Old vs new guard
Congress leaders point to a vicious cycle in the state units whereby the command of these units is handed to a new person, but the fruits of labour are often enjoyed by the older leadership.
“What will happen now is that the state chief in Rajasthan, Chhattisgarh and Madhya Pradesh will be changed. But we’ve seen in the past that that does nothing,” said the CWC member quoted above.
He cited the example of Sachin Pilot and said he “slogged for six years as state unit chief of Rajasthan, but when it came to chief ministership, Gehlot, who was national general secretary (Organisation) at the time, got the top post”.
The Congress leadership was accused in Rajasthan of not ceding space to the next generation of leaders, like Pilot. Two years after Gehlot took over as CM, Pilot staged a revolt by walking out of the government with close to 18 MLAs but came back to the party fold.
Since then, till a few months before the polls, Gehlot and Pilot presented a picture of disunity for the Congress. While Gehlot called Pilot “nikamma”, “nakara” and “corona”, Pilot sat on a dharna making demands against his own party’s government.
Last year, the party was looking to install Gehlot as party president in Delhi while making way for Pilot as the CM. However, a rebellion by Gehlot loyalists acted as a spoiler.
Since then, Gehlot had a falling out with the Congress high command, which means that he’s unlikely to have a role in Delhi in the near future.
“Gehlot saab has indicated that he wants to stick around in Rajasthan, but he will have to fight to retain his prominence in the party,” said a Rajasthan Congress leader, former minister and Gehlot loyalist.
“It is unlikely that the leadership in Delhi will make him the CM face in the next election or hand over the state unit to him.” the leader told ThePrint.
There are similar complaints against the party in Madhya Pradesh too.
One of Kamal Nath’s main planks while going into the polls was that his government was made to fall in 15 months. The reason was an internal war within the Congress between Nath and former deputy chief minister Jyotiraditya Scindia.
Scindia, who was known as one of Rahul Gandhi’s “young Turks”, walked out with his MLAs at being denied CM-ship. At the time, the Congress high command was blamed for not siding with its younger leaders and not fostering a new generation of leadership in the state.
The Chhattisgarh Congress was also riddled with factionalism over the chief minister’s post. There was an understanding that the party high command had agreed to a two-and-a-half-year rotational formula for the CM-ship. Once the halfway mark was reached, Singhdeo started making a claim for CM-ship, which was refused.
He then wrote to the high command saying that Baghel did not accord him respect. He, thereafter, resigned as Panchayati Raj minister. To deal with the situation, Singhdeo was made deputy chief minister months before the election.
However, with his loss in the assembly polls and the Congress’ dismal performance in the 14 seats in the tribal belt of Surguja, Singhdeo is unlikely to get any other role either in the state or in Delhi.
(Edited by Richa Mishra)