Get up and smell the coffee

As a political commentator, I have no hesitation in saying that the idea of Congress is like the idea of India. Just like there can be no one idea of India, similarly the Congress, like the Ganga, has room for everyone and every point of view.

But how did a party that was the original Hindu nationalist party with room and equal opportunity for everyone, go on to become an “anti-national” and “minority appeasing” party?

The answer lies in the office of Rahul Gandhi and those who surround him. For starters, let me put on record that I very firmly believe that Rahul Gandhi is a very well read man with his heart in the right place and a desire to lead the party to glory and bring reforms that transform our nation. 

I do believe that he must continue to lead the Congress, but there is not an iota of doubt in my mind that his office needs to be dismantled and a new team must be put together.

In simple plain speak, the office of Rahul Gandhi (RG), as it’s often referred to, has juvenile, immature, and non-serious people who have no political understanding and are out of touch with realities. 

I often refer to them as a bunch of clowns, who bring entertainment to our lives, but beyond that have no contribution and are not taken seriously even in the political circles.

If one is to limit the analysis to what went wrong in the 2019 Lok Sabha elections, let us look at the office of RG and their performance. Entertaining dead-wood like Sudheendra Kulkarni and Arun Shourie. What value do these two bring? If they were so capable, would they not have made Advani ji the PM?  Narendra Modi discarded these dead-woods whose weight the Congress dragged. 

The Congress Communication department is headed by a man who came third in by-elections, despite being known as RGs closest aide.

How many spokespersons in Congress are aware of the party history in detail? They keep getting bashed day in and out. The messaging of the party is childish and frankly, no one knows what the party wants to communicate.

On TV, the party comes across as a rich entitled party, with no respect for institutions, throwing tantrums without a roadmap. And honestly, if one is to run MGNREGA advertisements in a premium multiplex chain, this party and it’s communication department simply don’t know the art of speaking the right thing at the right place to the right audience. 

The Congress was the original Hindu Nationalist Party, with secular and equal opportunities for everyone. Yet today, so bad has been the Congress strategy in both communication and it’s own brand building, that the party of Indira Gandhi that broke Pakistan into two, the party of not one, but two martyr prime ministers, is known as anti-national! 

The question to ask these advisors is this: would Indiraji or Rajivji stand next to a Kanhaiya Kumar or Jignesh?

You could have sent your party secretary to support them, but sending Rahul Gandhi there was a disaster. Then you gave Jignesh a Congress-winning seat in Gujarat and he came and campaigned in Delhi for AAP, whereas Kanhaiya and Prakash Raj ensured that your best candidates in Bihar (from RJD) and Bangalore, both Muslim candidates who deserved to be in Parliament, lost! 

And on the issue of Muslims, the BJP managed to brand the Congress as a “Muslim appeasing party”, whereas wherever the Muslims have an option apart from the Congress, like UP or West Bengal or Tamil Nadu, they dump the Congress! 

Then the technocrats in Rahul Gandhi’s team. A fraud of a data scientist from the US claimed 2014 was a “black swan” event and Modi won’t be PM again. Well, the black swan just got fatter and is sitting on your head. Where did this data come from? He said Maharashtra was the angriest state. Well, the Congress got wiped out from Maharashtra.

And that brings me to my last point. Congress was conceived in my home state of Maharashtra. Its first session was to take place in Poona but was shifted to Bombay. Today the Congress has no leadership in a state that sends the second largest number of MPs to Parliament after UP. 

That Tilak, Agarkar’s party, that Nehru’s Congress had to depend on a bigoted Raj Thackeray to campaign for them is a matter of shame! How can one use Raj, synonymous for violence against the North Indians, and expect votes from UP and Bihar? And what was the contribution of Kumar Ketkar, sent to Rajya Sabha by one of these joker technocrats, in these elections? Would it not have made more sense to send Rajeev Shukla or Milind Deora, both of whom could network and contribute to the party, both in the state and at the Centre. 

Rahul Gandhi needs to wake up and smell the coffee. He is surrounded by incompetent fools who need to be shown the door. They are arrogant and have no touch with ground reality. If Rahul does want to see a Congress in power at the Centre, he needs to replace his team with competent political animals and an office that mirrors the PMO, who have their pulse on everything in the country. The leader must stay, but his team must go. Congress is the soul of India, her survival and growth are essential to the survival of India. 

Author is a political analyst. He is also a TV show host and a successful entrepreneur