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Wednesday, March 27, 2024
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HomeOpinionHow Jyotiraditya Scindia's departure shows Congress is an HR disaster

How Jyotiraditya Scindia’s departure shows Congress is an HR disaster

In Episode 412 of #CutTheClutter, Shekhar Gupta explains how opportunity in Congress is shrinking both vertically & horizontally, forcing its ranks to look elsewhere.

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New Delhi: Three of BJP’s senior-most leaders who were sworn in as cabinet ministers after the 2019 general elections have been party presidents — Amit Shah, Rajnath Singh and Nitin Gadkari.

What this shows is that each leader has come from below to compete and fight in order to become party president at a young age and then become senior ministers.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi too fought his way to the top, though he did not become party president.

Congress, by comparison, is an HR disaster. This is why.

The Congress in crisis

While the BJP prepared — on the eve of Jyotiraditya Scindia’s departure from the Congress — by having a meeting with its senior members, the Congress’ leaders were nowhere to be seen.

Unlike the BJP, the Congress has one leader and no hierarchy.

In HR, there is the concept of a glass ceiling. If you grow in an organisation, and if people sitting at the top continue to grow, the glass ceiling for everybody else is lifted higher.

Simply put, the Congress is failing both these tests — it is declining and not growing. The party leaders themselves are not trying to raise the ceiling.

Rahul Gandhi took too long to take on the party presidentship. Until he became president, all others in the party had to be below that level.

Similarly, he did not take a ministry. If he had taken a junior ministry in UPA 1 and a senior ministry in UPA 2, he would have proven his mettle. But because he hasn’t grown, others couldn’t grow either.

When you have options, you leave. That’s precisely what Jyotiraditya did.

Dynasties in the Congress

Apart from the Scindias, there are several dynasties within the Congress such as the Shastris, Jagjivan Ram, Digvijay Singh and his son, Kamal Nath and his son, Rajesh Pilot and his son, Ashok Ghelot, Arjun Singh and his son, and P. Chidambaram’s son.

Not everyone is patient enough to wait around. There are several who have left before Scindia — Sharad Pawar, who formed his own party (the NCP); Purna Sangma, who did the same as Narayan Rane, who joined the BJP.

Most notably, Jagan Mohan Reddy left though his father (Y.S. Rajasekhara Reddy) founded the Congress in Andhra Pradesh. After his father died, Jagan Mohan had approached the party leaders asking to take over his father’s mantle.

But the Congress responded with resentment, which led him to quit. He spent over a year in jail, worked hard, and took away the Congress’ vote in Andhra Pradesh.

Is Congress a meritocracy?

Everyone calls Rahul Gandhi a failure with no political achievements, but that isn’t necessarily true. First is, under him, the party won 21 seats in Uttar Pradesh. The second is when the party came close to defeating the BJP in Gujarat in 2017.

But do we remember anyone he has given credit to for their performances in Uttar Pradesh and Gujarat? The short answer is no.

In Rajasthan, for example, Ghelot was given chief ministership over Sachin Pilot, even though Pilot worked to give the party power.

When the glass ceiling is lowered, it’s a matter of time before dying.

You can watch the full episode of CTC here.

 

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4 COMMENTS

  1. Aspirational country proudly displays its career ambitions too. It bothers you eh? Reduce all stupid aspirations., No freeking Mercedes in Nano country.

  2. Guptaji and others in Media are wasting air time and energy talking about how Maharaja was treated and how Congress is in mess. All this we know. Why the media is not showing courage to take on Modi government for indulging in toppling game instead of focusing on governance. When in the past when Congress was on heigh, when they on and off played dirty trick, the media then used to hit out at Congress and now Shah is given Chanakya title.

    • “toppling game”?

      In a democracy everything is fair if it’s by choice. When Shiv Sena can ditch a winning pre-poll alliance for more power, why can’t incumbent Congress MLAs switch side for greener pastures? Just a couple of days ago the same media was cheering Kamal Nath when he claimed to have broken away few BJP MLAs . Karma is a ….

  3. Early in UPA I, Jyotiraditya Scindia complained bitterly to a friend that Rahul Gandhi’s lassitude was blocking the natural rise of talented, ambitious people like him. That remark travelled back to Smt Sonia Gandhi, who filed it away in her capacious memory. Leaders of his generation were grudgingly accommodated eventually as MoSes, at an age when Pranab Mukherjee had already made his mark.

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