#dnaEdit: Shepherding the flock

Congress president Sonia Gandhi and vice president Rahul Gandhi’s failure to evolve a revival strategy or communicate better in the aftermath of the crushing defeat in the Lok Sabha polls has clearly left both party cadre and leaders rudderless. One cannot find fault with former Union minister GK Vasan’s move to revive his late father GK Moopanar’s Tamil Maanila Congress. The Congress in Tamil Nadu, having lost its vitality and capacity to fight elections on its own steam long ago, has also been reduced to a political outcast with no party willing to align with it. Vasan, perhaps emboldened by Moopanar’s success in 1996 when he walked away with the Congress organisational apparatus and entered into a mutually beneficial alliance with the DMK, realises that his chances of political survival are better outside the Congress. With MK Stalin attempting to stitch together a grand alliance against the AIADMK and giving the Congress the cold shoulder, Vasan senses an opportunity. His immediate grouse appears to be the sidelining of his faction in the Tamil Nadu PCC overhaul, but what this spotlights is the Congress’s fissiparous tendencies even when in terminal decline.

With the AIADMK shattered by Jayalalithaa’s conviction and DMK yet to recover from the 2G scam that decimated its second rung, a window has opened up to national parties like the BJP and the Congress to regroup and woo the Dravidian vote bank. But the Congress appears bent on frittering away such opportunities. In 2008-09, it embarked on a much-hyped membership enrolment and talent-search drive overseen by Rahul Gandhi, attracting some attention from Tamil youth. However, in the absence of sustained efforts, the campaign came a cropper. Rahul correctly diagnosed that Congress youth and student leaders were hampered by the factional loyalties they had to swear by to receive the patronage of senior leaders. However, he has miserably failed to break this vicious cycle. But to honestly ascertain why merit failed to find its rightful place would be to question the Gandhi family’s role and its high command culture. Most leaders in the Congress owe their positions to their equations with this family and not to their political standing among the people. Look at Tamil Nadu: the three main factional leaders GK Vasan, P Chidambaram or KV Thangabalu could not deliver a single Lok Sabha ticket; however, the trio cannot complain of any lack of indulgence from the high command in terms of party posts or ministerial berths for themselves and their followers during the 10 years of UPA rule.

Irrespective of Vasan’s stature as a mass leader, his exit must ring alarm bells. Discontent after the defeats in Haryana and Maharashtra is growing and dissidence is simmering in Assam. Such widespread disaffection may soon come to a head. Surprisingly, Congress leaders have been content to accept all this with an air of resigned inevitability. In measured tones and oblique choice of words, senior leaders like Kamal Nath, Chidambaram, Digvijaya Singh and Janardhan Dwivedi have warned Sonia and Rahul of the growing drift but stopped far short of outright criticism. The Congress has needed the Gandhi family to stay united and present a picture of cohesion despite factional, regional, inter-personal and ideological differences. To explain away the Gandhis’ untimely reticence, it can be argued that mother and son are adapting to the bewildering changes, sizing up the party’s organisational remnants and evolving a future programme. But in the disarray the Congress finds itself, the Gandhis are in danger of being identified with the problems rather than the solutions.