The recent assertion by Congress chief ministers — Ashok Gehlot, Bhupesh Baghel and Amarinder Singh — on national issues is uncharacteristic and rare for a party that believes in living under the shadow of the ‘high command’. The aberrative nature of their new stance reflects the unprecedented crisis in the party and the vacuum that a weak, unplanned, capricious and often disinterested top leadership has left.
From the ‘love jihad’ cry to the contentious new farm laws, these Congress chief ministers are now at the forefront, taking on the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) on issues that are more national in their repercussions. With the national faces of the party — Rahul and Priyanka Gandhi — as whimsical and non-accountable as ever, a rare situation has arisen in the very top-controlled Congress — its regional leaders are making themselves heard. The always ‘let the Gandhis speak first’ state leaderships are now coming out of the top brass’ shadow.
Rajasthan Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot and his Chhattisgarh counterpart Bhupesh Baghel have both held forth on the issue of ‘love jihad’, in a timely and much-needed assertion against a worldview espoused by the BJP-VHP-RSS ecosystem.
Punjab Chief Minister Amarinder Singh, meanwhile, has fought tooth and nail against the Narendra Modi government’s new farm laws. He is also asserting himself in not allowing the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) to enter his state without his permission.
While the BJP has made ‘love jihad’ its war cry, the Congress’ top brass — which has made it a habit to be selectively vocal — is conspicuously silent on an issue that should have by now provoked an Opposition that claims to be ‘secular’.
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A failing top leadership
That the Congress is in perpetual crisis mode now is no secret — it still doesn’t have a permanent party president, its top brass is in its own zone and the rest of the organisation has no direction or game plan.
This lack of interest and initiative from the ‘first family’ spells disaster. Perhaps the Gandhi siblings don’t yet realise that it is no longer just about saving the party — it is as much about keeping themselves afloat. With power at the Centre now more of a mirage, and the party barely managing to keep its hold over a handful of states, its influence is waning. To make it worse, Rahul Gandhi lost family bastion Amethi in the 2019 Lok Sabha polls and with his mother Sonia Gandhi unlikely to contest another election, Rae Bareli might go as well.
So, Rahul is barely invincible even in his family fortress, and if things continue this way, 2024 could well mean the Gandhi family might not be left with any Lok Sabha seat between them. As things stand today, the Gandhis are barely clutching onto some fragments of power from the past — the withdrawal of the SPG cover is symbolic of this change.
The party’s performance in the recent Bihar assembly election should have embarrassed its leaders and forced them into action and course-correction. Instead, what we have got since then is complete silence. But then again, nothing — not even a mortifying 44 Lok Sabha seats in 2014 — seems to jolt the Gandhis out of their complacent bubble.
The venom the BJP has been spreading through its ‘love jihad’ narrative, and states such as Madhya Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh and Karnataka talking about a law to tackle it, Rahul Gandhi should have shown the gumption to oppose it, especially since he has made fighting the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) ideology the cornerstone of his political voice. Silence, however, has been his chosen path so far. After all, endorsing inter-religion marriages for a janeudhaari Brahmin may seem confounding, especially when you really don’t know what your politics stands for anymore, and when speaking on politically delicate issues pertaining to religion has become a no-go zone.
But this is a larger calamity for the Congress, not limited to the silence of the Gandhis on specific issues, which is just a symptom of the larger malaise. And this is what seems to be disturbing the equilibrium of the party.
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An assertive state command
Ashok Gehlot, in a series of tweets, made a bold, decisive and sensible assertion on his objection to the entire myth of ‘love jihad’. This is what a worthy opposition ought to do — question the party in power, howsoever powerful it might be, on its foolish but dangerous socio-political inventions. Bhupesh Baghel, too, has followed suit and taken on the Narendra Modi-Amit Shah-led party on the issue.
The irrepressible Amarinder Singh made quite a statement when he joined protesting farmers in the national capital against the Modi government’s three new farm laws. Ahead of the Lok Sabha polls last year, Amarinder Singh — aware of his party top brass’ inability to take on Modi — chose to talk tough on national security issues and lead the way for his party.
These are all strong state leaders with a grasp of mass politics. These are also leaders who have always sworn by the Gandhi family. So speaking up on national issues isn’t an attempt to show the top leadership down or overtake it, but instead to make up for the latter’s questionable and shaky presence. None of them speak against Rahul Gandhi, as incompetent as he may have proved to be so far. Recently, Bhupesh Baghel in an interview with me for ThePrint, re-asserted how the party wants Rahul Gandhi back as the president.
It isn’t as if the Congress has not had strong state leaders in the past — from Tarun Gogoi in the east and Sheila Dikshit in the north to Y. S. Rajasekhara Reddy in the south, the examples are plenty. But the top leadership, mainly the Gandhis, have always maintained a system where the state leaders work more on Delhi’s cue and remain largely confined to their turf instead of emerging as politicians speaking on national issues — the exclusive domain of the Gandhi family.
At a time when its central leadership is failing it miserably, the only way for the Congress to resurrect itself is to go ‘state by state’, riding on the shoulders of its entrenched regional leaders. With their vocal stand against the ecosystem created by the ruling BJP, especially under the all-powerful Modi-Shah combine, Ashok Gehlot, Bhupesh Baghel and Amarinder Singh may just have shown the Congress the way forward.
Views are personal.