Why Congress Leaders Want Rahul Gandhi To Move To Lucknow

Congress leader Digvijaya Singh set the cat among the pigeons on the evening of May 19, as the results of the five Assembly elections showed the definite shrinking of the Grand Old Party across the national landscape, asking if the need of the hour was "surgery" rather than "introspection".

His comments came late in the evening, after Congress president Sonia Gandhi said that the party accepts the verdict of the elections with "utmost humility (and would) introspect into the reasons for our loss."

Rahul Gandhi's office tweeted almost identical words. "We accept the verdict of the people with humility...We will work harder till we win the confidence and trust of the people," he said.

But even in December 2013, when the Congress was roundly defeated in the Assembly polls in Rajasthan, Chhattisgarh and Madhya Pradesh (it won in Mizoram, while the Delhi poll was hung between itself, the BJP and AAP), Sonia Gandhi had called upon introspection as an instrument of salvation.

"We will introspect seriously and we will take all necessary actions to rectify our mistakes or our way of functioning," she told reporters at the time.
 Then, again, after the big defeat in 2014, both Sonia and Rahul Gandhi took responsibility for the debacle. But no heads rolled, like none did after the defeats in Maharashtra and Haryana later that year. The likelihood of anyone, leave alone those at the very top of the party hierarchy, being asked to pay for the losses in Assam and Kerala are also minimal. Today the party is in power only in Karnataka and six other small states. 

Thiruvananthapuram MP Shashi Tharoor added his voice to the clamour on May 19, saying the time for introspection was over and that action was sorely needed to revamp the party - but like Digvijaya Singh, Tharoor stopped short of asking the Congress president to ask her son, Vice-President Rahul Gandhi, to step down and make way for other Congressmen and women more equal to the task of leading the party. 

Fact is, as Sonia Gandhi grows older and becomes more prone to falling ill, Rahul is virtually in charge. He has been taking all the major decisions. He is President of the Congress, except in name. 

Off the record, several Congressmen and women will tell you that Rahul Gandhi is a great guy, but...

The old stories of how Rahul Gandhi keeps people waiting, refuses to see them for days, doesn't remember the names of party supporters - a death wish in politics - have all returned. Each time the Congress loses an election, the stories are back with redoubled vigour and vengeance.

The big Assam killer, Congressman-turned-BJP strategist Himanta Biswa Sarma is on record saying he was treated shabbily by Rahul Gandhi when he went to meet him two years ago, demanding a change in the Assam leadership led by Tarun Gogoi. Kalikho Pul of Arunachal Pradesh, who is said to have instigated the troubles in that frontier state, says he was kept waiting by Rahul Gandhi for 13 months.

Off the record, Congressmen and women point out that in these troubled times, the party needs a Gandhi to be the cementing glue. For example, Rahul must move to Lucknow in Uttar Pradesh and camp there until elections are held in the state, a year from now. The psychological advantage of moving to Lucknow will give the Congress a fillip, even if he is not projected as Chief Ministerial candidate, they add.
 
Problem is that Rahul Gandhi was given similar advice in 2012, just before the Assembly elections in Uttar Pradesh, but he turned it down. No one could say anything to him then, not even his mother, the Congress President.

More and more it seems like Rahul's sister, Priyanka, will not be the face of the Congress party's UP campaign next year, notwithstanding recently hired political strategist Prashant Kishor's demand, although she is ready to help her brother. She was instrumental in helping her brother win Amethi in 2014, and can now play a similar role, but without upsetting the political apple-cart too much.

Over the years, if you ask people about Rahul Gandhi, especially people from Amethi, it is like asking them to sweat blood. They are terribly fond of "Rajiv's boy," but their voices falter if you probe too much. Even the mildest criticism is akin to betrayal.

 And yet, things are changing rapidly. The name that is much more of a ready reckoner these days is that of HRD minister Smriti Irani, who makes regular trips to the constituency and regularly meets people from the Rae Bareli-Sultanpur-Amethi belt in her home in Delhi. Those who meet her are especially impressed with her ability to remember their names.

 Not that Rahul Gandhi doesn't have his heart in the right place. In a meeting with journalists a couple of months ago - to which I was invited - the young Gandhi scion spoke eloquently about the crises in JNU and Hyderabad University and FTII at the time, pointing out the BJP's divide-and-rule policies among students, along caste as well as ideological lines.

Perhaps the problem lies in the lack of clarity at the top. Although Sonia Gandhi had promised that Rahul would inherit the mantle soon after the Jaipur 'chintan shivir' in January 2015, that hasn't happened yet. It is well known that Rahul doesn't like the old guard in the party, who in turn don't like Rahul's aides, accusing the latter of being disconnected from the masses and turning the party into an "NGO of sorts."
 It is in this space between two stools that the Congress party has been falling for some time. Rahul means well, but is mostly unable to translate his do-gooder image into old, fashioned realpolitik when not only the barbs hit home - like "suit-boot ki sarkar" did in the monsoon session of parliament last year - but he also wins back a state or two.

One of Rahul's key sycophants, Jairam Ramesh, has announced that Rahul will be party president in 2016, and that the long-delayed reshuffle of the AICC secretariat will also take place this year.

Certainly Sonia Gandhi cannot delay that decision much longer. If she does elevate Rahul to the top job, it could focus his mind and allow him to take decisions where he believes the buck stops with him. Apart from party elections at the grassroots, Rahul would create his own team which includes young colleagues with proven track records, like Sachin Pilot in Rajasthan and Jyotiraditya Scindia in Madhya Pradesh.

Perhaps Sonia Gandhi is simply afraid that even if Rahul becomes the boss, he may well end up taking several half-measures which could further exacerbate the ongoing crisis in the party. The major decisions that loom in the near distance include a decision on how to fight the elections in Uttar Pradesh. Should the Congress, for example, ally with the stronger Bahujan Samaj Party, led by Mayawati? Or should it go alone?

Certainly, every crisis has a kernel of opportunity. If Rahul decides to roll up his sleeves and plunges into the early 2017 Punjab battle with both vim and vigour, persuading Amarinder Singh to bring the other Congress factions on board, he would have learnt not only from his own mistakes, but also taken a leaf out of the successes of his political enemy, the BJP - who stole Himanta Sarma from under the nose of the Congress, made him work with Sarbananda Sonowal, but still didn't make him the Chief Ministerial candidate.

As for the unspoken part of the Digvijaya Singh question, whether "surgery" in the party should include removing Rahul Gandhi from his position at the top, well, it seems, as if the multiple-choice problem doesn't include that option.  

(Jyoti Malhotra has been a journalist for several years and retains an especial passion for dialogue and debate across South Asia.)

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