For Cong, it’s now or never

The outcome of the Congress Working Committee (CWC) meeting held on March 13 is barely heartening, if not altogether depressing. The top decision-making body of the grand old party of India shied away from an honest review of the party’s situation. There were no pleas urging the three Gandhis at the helm to step aside from the leadership although there were tokenistic offers from the troika to do so. However, calls for deep introspection were discernible amid placatory plaudits for the leadership. The meeting that was called to discuss the total failure of the party in the recently concluded elections for five State Assemblies, resolved to hold a chintan shivir (brainstorming camp) even as it asked Ms. Sonia Gandhi to continue as Interim President of the Party till the organisational elections scheduled in August-September.

The powerful message from the deliberations is the inevitability of one or the other Gandhi leading the Party. The members were vocal about missteps that led to loss of Punjab, the only State among the five, were it had the maximum chance of emerging the winner. There were wide variations in perceptions of the poll loss. A few rued the way former chief minister Capt. Amarinder Singh was humiliated before his exit from the party, while Sonia Gandhi felt that the decision should have come much earlier. Yet others attributed the debacle to maverick Navjyot Singh Sidhu’s constant hurling of snide remarks against the hapless CM candidate Charanjit Singh Channi. The party spoilt its prospects on its own allowing the Aam Aadmi Party to capture popular imagination.

The participation of the G-23 leaders however should be taken as a happy augury. Some misapprehensions got cleared between the camps of the loyalists and dissidents who were kept at bay for the last 18 months. There were voices that said healthy criticism must not be confused with rebellion. Apprehensions that continued failure to revive the party apparatus would result in AAP filling the void in Hindi states were voiced by several leaders. The party’s next major electoral test would lie in Himachal Pradesh which is also AAP’s next target.

The Congress’ cup of miseries has been filling up since long. In Uttar Pradesh, where the party was dislodged from the seat of power in 1989, Priyanka Vadra’s enthusiastic electioneering roused some hope of revival. But far from improving its tally, it could just about ensure a token presence in the 403-member UP Assembly. Its hopes of doing well in Uttarakhand were dashed, although it marginally improved its numbers. In Manipur and Goa it was wide off the mark to be in the reckoning for power.

The Congress Party would require a threadbare assessment of the existential crisis it is facing. Be it ideology, cadre, leadership, methodology for outreach, nothing that it possesses passes the test in the widely transformed context. It must avoid wishy-washy exercises of yore if it has to rise again in the popular imagination.