The Congress' loss in Assam is not surprising. What
is surprising is the Congress losing Kerala. And in Kerala lies the secret of the Congress's existential crisis. In Assam, the Congress has ruled for three consecutive terms, a good fifteen years. Tarun Gogoi, being the Chief Minister of a North Eastern state, was considerably ignored by national media and intellectuals. Three terms are not a mean achievement. Sheila Dikshit in Delhi was Chief Minister for three terms, allowing talk within the party of considering her a Prime Ministerial candidate if the Congress returned to power in 2014. Tarun Gogoi did not get the credit he truly deserved. In my opinion, his losing is not big news; nor is the victory of the BJP in Assam. A void was there, and the BJP filled it at the right time.
But Oommen Chandy was Chief Minister for just one term like Jayalalithaa in Tamil Nadu and Mamata Banerjee in West Bengal. They came back for another term and Chandy could not. Tamil Nadu like Kerala alternates between its two main parties, but this time it changed track because Jayalalithaa was seen as a Chief Minister who is delivering unlike DMK leader Karunanidhi whose term was fraught with non-performance, severe corruption and factional fights within his family. The question is why was a Congress government in Kerala not seen to be delivering? The Chandy government had faced serious corruption charges. He himself was named in a major scandal. Therefore, why should the people oblige a non-performing leader?
Non-performance and lack of accountability and killer instinct in the leadership are the basic reasons for the decimation of the Grand Old Party. Unfortunately, its leaders are still busy living in their self-created, illusionary ivory towers. Can anything be more pathetic than Ajay Maken, the Delhi state Congress president, crediting four municipal seats in the recent Delhi by-elections to the leadership of Congress Vice President Rahul Gandhi? If that victory can be credited to Rahul's leadership, then crushing defeats in Assam and Kerala should also be attributed to him. Can anything be more tragic than the justification offered by Mani Shankar Aiyar that Congress has performed better than BJP, nationally, in his
column on this website. He of course offered data and numbers to prove his point.
After every defeat, Congressmen as a matter of ritual raise the demand that Priyanka Gandhi should take over the party. Senior leaders whisper in journalists' ears that she has the right charisma and spontaneity to lead the Congress. Digvijaya Singh said a major surgery is required. His statement is the reflection of the realisation that something drastic needs to be done to bring back the Congress' lost glory. But statements by Maken and Aiyar don't provide any confidence that the Congress has learnt from its serial defeats. Only God can save a party who hires not only an outsider, but also a complete political novice like Prashant Kishor, hands over the entire organisation to him with the belief that he will resurrect the party, all without realizing that he is only a communications expert and not a political strategist.
Two and a half years in politics has taught me that either one has political instincts or one does not; they can't be acquired. Neither Rahul Gandhi nor Prashant have the virtues of a leader or the mind of a strategist. It was Indira Gandhi's brilliance as a political person that in a short span of three and a half years she turned the tables on Janta Party leaders, converted the hatred against herself into sympathy and returned with a thumping majority in 1981. She rode an elephant, reached the remotest corner of Bihar to win back Dalit votes, exploited the chinks in Janta Parivar and the fatal ambition of Charan Singh to break the Morarji Government. She knew Charan Singh was dying to be the PM; she (out) foxed him, got his government sworn in, only to finally pull the rug from under his feet in just a few weeks. She successfully proved that Janta leaders were incapable of running a government and that despite her dictatorial style, she was the better choice as Prime Minister.
Have you seen any such brilliant move by Rahul Gandhi in the last two years? Except a few statements, he is a non-performing opposition leader. Even Anand Sharma seems to have done better in the Rajya Sabha. Not once could Rahul Gandhi put the Modi government on the mat, either in parliament nor outside. Indira Gandhi seized half chances, kept the Janta government on its toes and reestablished communication with the her lost social base. Rahul had many opportunities in the last two years: Akhlaq's murder over beef in Dadri, Rohith Vemula's suicide in Hyderabad are the prominent ones, but he failed to capitalise on them. In some cases, he didn't seize the initiative; in others, he could not carry them through to their logical conclusion.
Muslims and Dalits together had been the major reason for the success of the Congress for decades, but today these two social groups are highly disillusioned with the Congress. The party has no strategy to lure them back. Instead, it has hired Prashant Kishor. The presence of Prashant Kishor in the party is proof that the Congress is no longer a political party but a corporate house. Corporate houses don't contest elections, they play with profits. Parties score on emotions. Smart politicians love to lose fights to win the big battles - unlike corporate honchos. Politics is the art of winning hearts, corporations are a trick to manipulate pockets. Rahul Gandhi is expected to behave like a politician but he is aping corporate CEOs. Doom is certain.
The Congress has forgotten to reward talent (those who deliver) and punish non-performers. The Congress has forgotten to promote leaders with killer instincts and punish sycophants.
If the Congress seriously believes that it is left with any role in Indian politics, then it has to first make Rahul Gandhi accountable for his follies and failures. Either Rahul should be removed or he should make way for another leader. If that leader is Priyanka, then so be it. Only a fresh and radical approach (surgery) can bring the Congress back from the abyss it is at the moment staring into.
(Ashutosh joined the Aam Aadmi Party in January 2014.)Disclaimer: The opinions expressed within this article are the personal opinions of the author. The facts and opinions appearing in the article do not reflect the views of NDTV and NDTV does not assume any responsibility or liability for the same.