Opinion: Will Priyanka destroy Congress’s dream again? know the clear answer

Author: Asim Ali
he/she is on a two-day campaign in Wayanad, the seat vacated by his/her brother. This is the first election in which Priyanka Gandhi will try her luck. With long political experience and honing of his/her campaigning and management skills, he/she is expected to win easily. Apart from this, there are a lot of expectations from him/her. What will the possible entry of the young brother-sister duo into Parliament mean for the Congress? Let us divide the Congress into three parts – parliamentary, organizational and electoral. We must remember that the influence of Parliament has been declining for many decades. A few strong speeches by Priyanka in Parliament will not be of real help to the Congress. As the Haryana elections reminded us, the Congress is still going through a protracted crisis. he/she has not won any election in a direct fight against the BJP for the last six years (except in South India and Himachal Pradesh). Therefore, if Priyanka has to make any definite impact in terms of reviving the party, she must work in the area of ​​strengthening the organizational machinery and electoral appeal.

The long-term problem for the Congress has been the lack of any institution-building power. Sonia’s long rule gave the party a much-needed boost, but failed to stop the process of institutional decline. Regional satraps continued to dominate their areas while the central organization continued to be dominated by old power brokers without any long-term vision.

Rahul tried to create a new institutional impulse and failed. After taking charge of the Youth Congress and NSUI, he/she oversaw some elections within the party and nurtured a crop of young leaders – Jyotiraditya Scindia, Sachin Pilot, Jitin Prasad, RPN Singh, Kumari Shailaja. However, unlike his/her uncle Sanjay Gandhi, who managed to make the Youth Congress a powerful power center in the party, Rahul failed to disrupt the old party system.

The dwindling Sanjay-Rajiv loyalists, with the help of Ahmed Patel, continued to use their influence to capture top positions in the party. In the two years of his/her presidency (2017-2019), Rahul Gandhi could not even form a Congress Working Committee (CWC) that was in line with his/her leadership. After winning in Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh in 2018, he/she accepted the old leaders in the election for the post of Chief Minister despite the resentment of young Scindia and Pilot.

Rahul can be credited with having recently given a new (albeit incomplete) vision to the Congress, as epitomized by the Bharat Jodo Yatra. But, like Sonia, he/she has proved less adept at reviving the Congress as an institution. Can Priyanka play this role, and can she succeed in it?

Jed Adams, author of ‘Dynasty: The Nehru-Gandhi Story’, noted that Rajiv Gandhi compared Priyanka to his/her mother Indira for her strong will – ‘the quality that Indira’s opponents called her stubbornness’. Rebuilding the institution requires political will and determination. It takes a certain tenacity to get tough decisions to be taken from stubborn, self-serving state politicians. Is Priyanka capable of this work?

If they are, we have not seen this quality. Priyanka has so far appeared more comfortable reprising the role of Sonia’s mild-mannered backroom manager Ahmed Patel. In Rajasthan, Chhattisgarh and Himachal Pradesh he/she has stepped in only to defuse the periodic crises between rival camps within the party. However, Congress needs more than crisis-management.

The Congress high command made Priyanka in-charge of the 2022 assembly elections in Uttar Pradesh. The result was disappointing. Congress’ vote share to decline from 6% in 2017 to 2% in 2022. To be fair, this dire outcome was largely caused by structural factors, far beyond their control. Yet the fact that Priyanka later left the UP Congress to fend for itself is indicative of the Congress culture. The position of Congress is completely opposite to that of BJP in terms of institution building culture. Organizational secretaries of RSS play an important role in BJP. Consider Kushabhau Thackeray, the architect of the BJP’s expansion in Madhya Pradesh and Gujarat in the 80s and 90s.

Thackeray and his/her ilk ensured generational change by promoting young leaders, organizing frontline organizations and coordinating their activities and helped rejuvenate the institution called BJP. For example, Thackeray strongly supported Shivraj Singh Chouhan and Narendra Modi with the motivation of promoting OBC leaders. In this way, RSS leaders avoid infiltration of older leaders, and ensure renewal of the party to serve the changing electorate.

We have seen the creation of a certain division of labor in the central leadership of the Congress, much like the first triumvirate of Caesar, Pompey and Crassus who ruled ancient Rome. Rahul has been the popular face of the party, Kharge the organizational manager while Priyanka has been the troubleshooter and occasional campaigner. This arrangement has overseen the party’s rise in Karnataka and Telangana and its victory in the Lok Sabha elections. Yet, it has also seen several upsets, last year in the three state elections of Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh and most recently the defeat in Haryana.

The Congress is in dire need of a power-centre that is committed to re-strengthening the party as an institution. The big question is whether Priyanka is willing and able to play this organizational role?

The author is a political researcher.