#dnaEdit: Byzantine flavour

Is the Congress coming apart after being reduced to 44 seats in the Lok Sabha in 2014 from a respectable 206 in 2009? Many party-watchers are inclined to believe that the Congress is indeed sinking into oblivion, and it is happening faster than had been anticipated. The resignation of Narayan Rane, powerful local politician of Ratnagiri in Maharashtra and that of Hemant Biswa Sarma along with 28 MLAs in Assam seem to reinforce the doomsday blues as it were. Though the rebellions of Rane and Biswa are against their respective Chief Ministers — Rane is against Prithviraj Chauhan and Sarma against Tarun Gogoi — these are interpreted as signs of disaffection with the party high command or central leadership, and more specifically against the family at the helm, party president Sonia Gandhi and vice president Rahul Gandhi. The soothsayers’ reading of the entrails about the disintegration of the Congress seem more in the nature of vicarious pleasure rather than a reading of reality.

There is no denying that most of the Congress members who were not in the dress circle when the party was in power for a decade are angry with those ministers and general secretaries who strutted around all these years. The party’s sans-culottes believe that the privileged few should have been held responsible and they should have been sent into penitence camps. Critics interpret this to mean that the foot-soldiers are angry with Sonia and Rahul Gandhi, and that the two will have to step aside. It is a deeper political question whether Sonia and Rahul should quit. But their resignation is not at issue here. The anger is with the courtiers of 10 Janpath. It’s not even the case as being made out that there is a rift in the party, and the two warring groups belong either to Sonia or Rahul camp. These are just whispers in the corridor. Nothing more.

The disenchantment in the provinces about the central leadership belies the general criticism that the party is in the stranglehold of the Nehru-Gandhis and that until this is broken and internal party democracy restored, there is no hope for the party. At play here is internal democracy with rebellions sputtering all around. But the local satraps have always confronted the imperial central command of the party, and internal party democracy functioned in the Congress through the default mode of dissidence. The dissidence always affected changes in power structures around the Nehru-Gandhis without ever touching the family itself. Is it a half-hearted rebellion then? There have been attempts in 1969 and in 1978, when the party rebelled against Indira Gandhi, but she fought back and marshalled sufficient followers, eventually throwing out the challengers. Sitaram Kesri tried to stop the re-emergence of the family through Sonia Gandhi in 1998, and a similar attempt was made by Sharad Pawar, PA Sangma and Tariq Anwar in 1999.

They failed. So, the Congress has a democratic mechanism of its own giving everyone a fairly good chance to become the leader. 

It can be certified that the Congress after electoral defeat is in the pink of health because there is not just buzz but intense activity inside the party. It is of course not a healthy structured and transparent contest for power. It has all the trappings of palace intrigue, carrying the musty Byzantine flavour.