Rahul Gandhi’s inherited aides continue to fail him

Every political party needs a change. Especially after they are mauled at the hustings. With less than 50 seats to show in the 2014 Lok Sabha elections, the catastrophic loss should have been a wake-up call for the Congress. But the Congress party, displaying typical policy paralysis, took more than three years to hand over the leadership mantle from Sonia Gandhi to Rahul. And, Rahul unfortunately is saddled with the old Sonia team, her baggage of losers, that he does not have the gumption or the courage to disown. 

There is the 73-year-old Chidambaram, still at the helm of the economic think tank of the Congress party, who was primarily responsible for the economic decline witnessed during the UPA II. He has been given a key role to justify the economic decisions of the UPA II. He has also been given the role of denouncing whatever decisions the Modi Government takes. 

Then there is the 70-year-old Kapil Sibal, another key figure from Manmohan Singh’s cabinet who is long past his sell-by date.  He held many ministries from science and technology to law and justice  and has been with the Congress for decades. He has taken the place of  Digvijay Singh (71 years), the outspoken Congress  spokesman who nowadays is keeping quiet. Like Singh, Sibal has been  making wild allegations that the CAG reports of 2011 and 2012 were malicious and mischievous; and, that there was no notional loss in spectrum or coal licence case. This despite the fact that Rs 1.7 trillion had been bid in 2014 and 2015 for the telecom spectrum and Rs 2.1 trillion was bid for the coal spectrum in 2015. 

Then there is Ghulam Nabi Azad, again touching 70, who was both a former Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister and a Minister in the Manmohan Singh government.  Also in the team is Mallikarjun Kharge aged 76 of Karnataka who has  been selected as the leader of the Congress party in the Lok Sabha,  largely because most big guns of the Congress lost in the 2014  elections.  Occupying a key position is Ahmed Patel, another Sonia  loyalist who was political secretary to Sonia Gandhi from 2001 to 2017, and who is touching 70. He has been brought centre-stage during the time of Rahul and is now the all-powerful treasurer of the Congress party. 

Rahul has no young and energetic leaders to replace Sonia’s old guard. Even Sachin Pilot and Jyotiraditya Madhavrao Scindia, the two promising  young faces in their early forties, are  kept in the background and not even given roles to lead the states to  the elections. For some strange reasons of keeping a balance between  factions  Kamalnath, aged 72, was given the leadership  mantle in the state of Madhya Pradesh instead of Scindia, 42, who will play second fiddle to him.  Whereas Kamalnath has been previously an union minister of both  commerce and urban development ministries he is at best known as a good  fund raiser. He is surely no match for Shivraj Singh Chouhan the current  BJP chief minister, who is 13 years younger and has been able to ward  off incumbency effects for three terms. Modi’s team, be it at the Centre or in the state, is in their sixties, at least 10 years younger. 

Addressing Congress workers a few months ago, Rahul Gandhi declared that Coca Cola was invented by a shikanji wala instead of  the American pharmacist John Pemberton and the video went viral. Again speaking  at Hamburg, Germany, in August 2018, Rahul  put forward an absurd hypothesis about the creation of ISIS  saying “A  law that stopped a particular tribe in Iraq from getting government  jobs...the network that was excluded from jobs in Iraq...the Tikriti  tribal network linked up with the cellphone network of Iraq and with the  network of artillery that was left in Iraq and you got an insurgency  that fought the United States and caused massive casualties to the  Americans. That insurgency slowly entered empty spaces. It entered the  empty space in Iraq. It entered the empty space in Syria. And, it, in  the end, connected with the global internet to form the horrific idea  called ISIS” 
Another problem is Rahul’s  assessment of the situation to corner the BJP Government. His timing and  strategy is all wrong. Bringing in a no-confidence motion on the first  day of the monsoon session ensured a cakewalk for the BJP. Similarly, calling for a Bharat Bandh in September 2018 without any nation-wide build up and adequate preparation ensured that it was a flop. The problem is that the Congress does not today have a grassroot level party organisation in most states. In UP, the largest state, it has no significant presence  in most districts. Rahul is not ready to really introspect and  acknowledge those shortcomings. The Congress party is not serious about  building the strength of its cadres in  an important state like UP. It is thinking that the SP-BSP tie up will  defeat the BJP and tie up with the Congress. Why should they? It is  also losing its hold in the other big states like Maharashtra and Andhra Pradesh, again because of lack of  cadres. Merely being anti-Modi will not get Congress the votes. 

The author is a senior journalist. Views are personal