Busy battling intra-party rivalries, no prominent role in the central leadership, losing elections thanks to a ruptured top command twiddling their thumbs, younger leaders like Sachin Pilot and Jyotiraditya Scindia, among others, have to think disruptive and move out of the Congress.
The ability of the Nehru-Gandhi dynasty to keep the party together is eroding by the day. India’s oldest political party must now break up in order for its leaders and ideology to thrive.
Unlike Narendra Modi-Amit Shah’s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), the Congress does have a healthy bench strength to boast of, particularly among the young guard. And yet, all that these leaders have done for the past few years is, well, nothing. If they want a sustainable future in politics, these politicians have little option but to cut the umbilical cord.
Congress’ infamous and now-perennial old guard-versus-new guard strife has been in the news yet again with the spats between former Congress ministers Ajay Maken and Milind Deora, and Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Kamal Nath and senior leader Jyotiraditya Scindia. Sharmistha Mukherjee also called out P. Chidambaram on Twitter for congratulation the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) for its Delhi win.
This should be embarrassing for the Congress, but more importantly, it ought to worry the Scindia-Pilot category of leaders for what it is doing to their political careers — consuming them in petty rivalries rather than letting them focus on future elections.
Also read: Sharmishtha Mukherjee said what many in Congress are saying. Does she have a follow-up plan?
The turf wars
The Scindia-Kamal Nath rivalry in Madhya Pradesh or the Pilot-Ashok Gehlot rocky relationship in Rajasthan has been as public as can be, and in a way, has consumed the younger turks completely.
Both Jyotiraditya and Sachin had unhidden chief ministerial ambitions, both did their respective tasks in their states and both were restless to make it to the top posts. But when the Congress won in Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan, the top command — which at that point primarily meant then Congress president Rahul Gandhi — chose to go with the older guard as CMs.
Resentment has been brewing since, with both Pilot and Scindia limited to their states with no national role, and even in their respective turfs, reduced to second fiddle. Both have been ministers at the Centre in the UPA-era.
The internal wars, however, transcend much beyond just these two leaders.
As the Sharmistha Mukherjee-P. Chidambaram and Milind Deora-Ajay Maken fights show, these are all inherent frustrations manifesting publicly. It signals a sense of exasperation and helplessness that seems to have seeped into the younger guard.
What meaningful work have other gen-next Congress leaders, especially those who have lost their elections, been doing? From Jitin Prasada in Uttar Pradesh to Sushmita Dev in Assam — no Congress leader of this generation is at the forefront, and that is because the only ones allowed national spotlight are the Gandhi siblings.
The Gandhis, meanwhile, seem fairly content about presiding over a collapsing empire, plagued by countless internal wars, games of one-upmanship and a completely demotivated second-rung.
Also read: Deora, Kamal Nath, Scindia, Ajay Maken: Congress imploding or showing internal democracy?
A sinking ship
By no measure can one write the Congress off. After all, nearly 12 crore Indians still vote for it. A revival – in whatever form, be it as splintered groups or with a rejuvenated leadership – is inadvertent. However, politicians like Sachin Pilot and Jyotiraditya Scindia can hardly be in politics to sit out of power and waste precious time, which should actually be a movement towards the peak of their careers.
There have, in fact, been murmurs of both these leaders, besides others, of looking for options outside the Congress.
The bigger issue is why these leaders, despite not being unpopular themselves, have lost their elections. A completely uninspired and uninspiring top leadership — especially with Rahul Gandhi as the face — and a rudderless, strategy-deprived party has been their undoing.
In the embarrassing rout the Congress faced in both the 2014 and 2019 Lok Sabha elections, only a lucky few survived, with the rest being washed away in the flood of unpopularity and the reputation of the party.
Rahul Gandhi and his sister Priyanka Gandhi Vadra seem interested only in themselves, not in their party or in the growth prospects of their colleagues. The fact that despite the many recent failures, the family hasn’t stepped aside, only goes to show they will never cede space to a non-Gandhi. More worryingly, their approach towards state units also reeks of confusion and insecurity, with no desire to promote and mould younger leaders, lest they emerge as threats.
Leaders like Scindia and Pilot may have been family-loyalists, and also close to Rahul Gandhi, but politics is all about the art of self-preservation over all else. And these politicians aren’t oblivious of that either.
For the spirit of the Congress party to live on, and for its able young guard to survive, it is imperative they break-away — whether together as a cohesive force or in a splintered, but well-strategised, fashion. The oldest party of India has become home to the proverbial frogs in a well, where no one — especially the top command — wants to emerge out of the darkness, or allow others to do so. Each of these leaders needs to climb out on their own to avoid drowning, and the life-jacket they need for that most certainly cannot be their parent party.