As the ‘election or nomination’ debate raged on during the Congress’ steering committee meeting in Raipur Friday, the irrepressible Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury, the party’s Lok Sabha leader, praised president Mallikarjun Kharge. “Why can’t we let him nominate (members of the Congress Working Committee)? He is 80 years old. He is a Dalit,” he said.
But Chowdhury was obviously unaware that his new party president doesn’t wear his Dalit identity on his sleeve. “Arre kya Dalit, Dalit karta rahta hai (Why do you keep saying ‘Dalit, Dalit’)? Am I capable just because I am a Dalit?” — grapevine told me that’s how Kharge interjected.
Chowdhury’s was certainly not the only flimsy argument that was being made against holding the elections to the CWC, the party’s apex decision-making body.
As it is, the Gandhis prevailed. There were no elections to the CWC — one of the demands made by the party’s ginger group, the G-23, in a letter to Sonia Gandhi in August 2020. The decision not to hold elections didn’t go down well with the 15,000 delegates who attended the Congress’ 85th plenary session. At one point in time on Sunday, the delegates’ indifference and lack of interest became so obvious that top leaders, sitting on the dais, thought the sound system wasn’t working. There was no response from the audience — no clapping, slogans, or shouts. Those sitting on the dais sent a person down among the audience comprising AICC and PCC delegates to check if they were able to hear the speeches. There was nothing wrong with the sound system, they found out. The lack of interest in the proceedings was genuine — most of the audience seemed to be going through the rigmarole.
A few small groups of Seva Dal and Indian Youth Congress workers were posted at strategic locations. They sloganeered in Priyanka Gandhi Vadra and Rahul Gandhi’s support when the leaders spoke. There was little resonance from the rest of the crowd, which was waiting for the proceedings to get over and leave.
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Sacrifice after sacrifice
In the meantime, speeches continued, almost entirely centred on addressing “hamaari prerana srot (our source of inspiration)” and “tyaag ki murti (statue of sacrifice)” Sonia Gandhi, and Rahul Gandhi, “jo, jab chal rahe the, BJP/RSS wale jal rahe the (who walked [in the Bharat Jodo Yatra] while the Bharatiya Janata Party-Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh burned in envy)” as Srinivas B.V. of the Indian Youth Congress said. Himachal Pradesh Chief Minister Sukhvinder Singh Sukhu sought to remind the audience of the last ‘sacrifice’ of the Gandhis. “In 2009, Rahul Gandhi could have become the Prime Minister as Manmohan Singh wanted him to,” he said. The audience didn’t care enough to clap.
“Nobody in the world has walked so much (as Rahul Gandhi did) — 4,000 km. We should see that Rahulji becomes the Prime Minister,” a delegate from Tamil Nadu said. Tamil Nadu Congress MP Jothimani Sennimalai found a “defining moment” for women’s empowerment when “women felt safe to hold the hands of a leader (Rahul Gandhi’s during the yatra)”. Congress legislative party leader in Gujarat Amit Chavada found “a naya (new) Gandhi” in Rahul’s “murti of tyaag and samarpan (statue of sacrifice and dedication)”.
Throughout those three days, starting with the Steering Committee and Subject Committee meetings on the first, there was one more person — other than Adhir Chowdhury — who had a few words to say about Kharge. It was Rajesh Lilothia, chairman of the party’s Scheduled Castes department. Mallikarjun Kharge is “the Ambedkar of this era”, he said. The rest of the speakers focused on praising the three Gandhis in what was supposed to be a brainstorming session to lay the roadmap for the party’s revival.
When Priyanka Vadra spoke, though, she did seem to connect with the delegates. She spoke about Anokhi Lal, a yatri who carried the flag from Kanyakumari to Kashmir, another one who walked barefoot all through the Bharat Jodo Yatra, and a few other dedicated workers. In Uttar Pradesh, Congress workers call themselves “lifelong sufferers” as they have to struggle all their life, she said. Although she struck a chord, it was a sideshow as expected.
The showstopper at the plenary session was to be Rahul Gandhi whose Bharat Jodo Yatra remained the central theme. When he got up to speak, All India Congress Committee general secretary K.C. Venugopal, who hung around the Gandhi siblings constantly, beckoned everyone on the dais to get up. And so they did, and Venugopal got the brownie points. Rahul mostly spoke about his experiences from the yatra. Apart from the usual Modi-Adani-RSS bashing, what was remarkable about his speech was his self-discovery. “Main”, “mujhe”, “mera” — I, me, mine — figured as many as 112 times in his 47-minute-long speech.
Some leaders seemed to suggest that the plenary session was supposed to be an introspection of where the Congress was going wrong and what challenges it faced.
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Two outliers
A delegate from West Bengal, Shankar, sought to draw attention to the party workers’ plight in the state. “In the entire country, if any Congresspersons are unhappy, they’re in Bengal. We fought against the Left for 35 years and have been fighting against the Trinamool Congress for 10 years. Main kaise satta mein aaun, meri party kaise satta mein aayegi, uss par koi prastaav nahin (there is no AICC resolution on how I will come to power and how my party will come to power in West Bengal). If we are not in panchaayat or at the booth level, how can we save the party? Goli se maar do, ya Congress se nikaal do (Either you shoot me or throw me out of the Congress). Mamata (Banerjee) se ladne ke liye hamein AICC ki madad chahiye (we need the AICC’s help to fight Mamata Banerjee),” Shankar lamented. He sounded like a discordant voice in a place where everyone else’ main objective seemed to be to celebrate the yatra. After being told twice in five minutes to wind up, the visibly dejected AICC delegate left.
A few hours later, a better-known and no-nonsense speaker, Shashi Tharoor, sought to drive home the point about the Congress’ inconsistencies and ambivalence in terms of its ideological stances. “Congress should stand up for its foundational values. We should be absolutely clear about our ideological stances in favour of inclusive India. The tendency to downplay some positions or avoid taking stand on some issues in order not to alienate what we assume to be the sentiments of the majority only plays into the BJP’s hands. We must have the courage of our conviction. We could have been more vocal on the Bilkis Bano outrage, attacks on Christian churches, murder in the name of cow vigilantism, bulldozer demolitions in Muslim homes, and similar issues. These are Indian citizens who look to us for support,” he said.
Tharoor raised the most pertinent questions that the Congress has been evading. While Rahul Gandhi’s Congress wants people to vote for his “ideological battle” against the BJP and the RSS, the crisis of conviction Tharoor was flagging had no takers. It was so evident from the party’s political resolution that spoke of its commitment to restore statehood to Jammu and Kashmir but skirted any mention of Article 370. There was silence on Bilkis Bano case and cow vigilantism, too.
The crisis that Tharoor highlighted should have been the central debating point for a party that seems so confused about its political and ideological moorings. He, however, looked isolated in that august gathering. What Bengal’s Shankar said should have been the subject of a comprehensive discussion, given how the party workers have been left high and dry. In Kerala, the Congress is the Left’s principal adversary; it joined hands with the Left in Tripura despite the failure of a similar dalliance in West Bengal.
At the end of the plenary session, Kharge laid the roadmap for the Congress. “We have to carry forward what Rahulji has done by walking on rocky paths. Bharat Jodo Yatra se yehi margdarshan milaa hai (this is the guidance of Bharat Jodo Yatra),” he said. Guidance! Well, we have to be simpletons to think that a non-Gandhi Congress president would be anything but titular. Kharge’s message to his party workers and voters was unmistakable: Gandhis are the Congress. Ask not what they can do for you; ask what you can do for them.
DK Singh is Political Editor at ThePrint. Views are personal.
(Edited by Humra Laeeq)