This Article is From May 20, 2014

A Political Dynasty in India and a Crippling Defeat

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Congress president Sonia Gandhi and her son and party vice president Rahul Gandhi arrive to attend a meeting of the Congress Working Committee to review the party’s defeat in the general elections in New Delhi on May 19.

New Delhi : Ritual mortification is an essential element in Indian political life, and a Monday meeting of the Indian National Congress party, convened three days after the worst defeat in its history, seemed to call for something spectacular. (Congress Party Admits Defeat, but Shields Rahul Gandhi from Blame)

About 200 journalists spent the afternoon camped outside the party's headquarters here at 24 Akbar Road, peering through the shrubbery to the bungalow where grandees were, presumably, determining whose heads were about to roll. ( Elections 2014: Track Live Updates Here )

After a campaign that clearly failed to connect with an influx of young, growth-minded voters, Congress' representation in the lower house of Parliament has been reduced from 206 seats to 44 - a shocking comedown for the party whose history is integral to India's founding narrative. (Elections 2014: Detailed Results here)

The sun was already slanting sideways through the trees when the committee members emerged, grim-faced, with the news of what had happened inside: nothing.

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The party's president, Sonia Gandhi, and her son, Rahul Gandhi, had offered to resign their positions in acknowledgment of their roles in the disastrous campaign. But the committee members unanimously voted to reject their resignations, showing their unshaken confidence in the Family that, in this city, somehow always begins with a capital F. (Congress Unchanged. Gandhis' Offer to Resign Rejected)

"I don't think we should do what Shakespeare said, and 'throw away the pearl,'" said a senior party member, Mani Shankar Aiyar, when asked about the decision during a talk show on NDTV. "The Gandhi family is our pearl."

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And so repeated a predictable and time-honored ritual. For many years, Gandhi leaders have been expressing ambivalence about their roles, and party loyalists have been responding with louder and louder applause: Ten years ago, when Sonia Gandhi refused to accept the post of prime minister, Congress workers gathered outside her residence, some writing pleas in blood or threatening suicide if she did not change her mind. Shouts of protest went up earlier this year when Sonia Gandhi announced that Rahul, 43, would not formally be named a prime ministerial candidate.

But there was something frustrating about the results of Monday's meeting of the Congress Working Committee, whose members were appointed by Sonia Gandhi. Many supporters were eager for signs that the party was prepared to confront weaknesses that have emerged, among them the absence of an effective political leader and an emphasis on welfare that failed to resonate with younger and more aspirational Indians.

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At the meeting, though, Gandhi was one of many to single out the party's communications strategy, saying that "the message of Congress was lost in the din and dust raised by an aggressive and polarizing campaign by our opponents, which was backed by unlimited resources and a hostile media."

Ritual resignations, ritually rejected, occur regularly in Indian politics, serving as reassurance that leaders "have not lost the trust and the faith of party insiders," said Milan Vaishnav, an analyst at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, a Washington-based research center. But they may not do much to convince the public that its leaders have taken responsibility.

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"It's this kind of Kabuki theater," he said. "There's a facade of accountability, but it's usually just a way of bolstering your standing. It basically demeans or diminishes the idea of having true party democracy. These are symbolic gestures; they don't have any meaning."

The Congress party's defeat was in some ways predictable. It had been in power for 10 years, and it is an unwritten law in political science that incumbents, in democracies, are hard-pressed to be re-elected a third time. Food inflation has been high. But not even pessimists would have predicted a result of 44 seats, said Neerja Chowdhury, a political analyst, who called it "a perilous moment.

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"Suppose they don't get their act together? Then they can look at a scenario where the Congress splits, an erosion takes place and people in the states begin to look for greener pastures," she said. In a democracy, she added, "you need a healthy opposition."

Waves of commentary have begun, starting with the obvious: Faced with a strong opponent in Narendra Modi, and saddled with the criticism that the party had become rudderless, the Congress party still did not name a prime ministerial candidate, presumably to protect Rahul Gandhi, a visibly reluctant candidate, from a bruising standoff. And, for young voters increasingly obsessed with economic advancement, its message was far too focused on the party's championing of subsidy programs.

"The real lesson they must draw from this is an ideological one; the redistributive ideology is not enough anymore," said Rajiv Desai, a public relations executive and longtime adviser to the Gandhi family. He said the Congress party could have easily presented itself as a standard-bearer for economic reform, if its leaders, including Sonia Gandhi, had not insisted on a message tailored to the poor.

"The Congress needs a leader, and the most obvious one is Sonia," he said. "They have got to get her there and tell her, 'You missed the bus.' What I would say is, 'Your policy has worked. The people have become rich, and therefore aspirational, in the rural areas. And that's why you lost.'"
© 2014, The New York Times News Service
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