Can Congress resurrect itself?

Can Congress resurrect itself?
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Highlights

The biggest takeaway from the election results of the five states is that Narendra Modi’s BJP continues to be on a roll (it is a hands-on victory for Modi rather than the BJP as much as the Bihar results in 2015 constituted a greater personal setback for the leader than the party) and Rahul Gandhi’s Congress is on the verge of decimation, having been decisively routed in Uttar Pradesh and Uttarakh

The biggest takeaway from the election results of the five states is that Narendra Modi’s BJP continues to be on a roll (it is a hands-on victory for Modi rather than the BJP as much as the Bihar results in 2015 constituted a greater personal setback for the leader than the party) and Rahul Gandhi’s Congress is on the verge of decimation, having been decisively routed in Uttar Pradesh and Uttarakhand.

The only consolation for Rahul is Punjab where the party has notched up a clear victory. In Goa and Manipur, it is a close race between the Congress and the BJP. Even for the sake of argument, if it is conceded that the Congress wins both these states, it will only give the party statistical satisfaction because these are micro-states and they do not alter the big picture for the final battle in 2019 (both Manipur and Goa send just two MPs each to the Lok Sabha whereas Uttar Pradesh and Uttarakhand send 80 and five seats respectively).

Both the Liberal Party in the UK and the Congress in India came into existence in the 19th Century, the Liberal Party in the early decades and the Congress in the closing decades of the century…By the time the Congress Party came to power in India, the Liberals had gone into the stage of irreversible decline. By the end of the 19th Century, the party had formed four governments in the United Kingdom.

In the early 20th Century too, it was a potent political force and either ruled on its own or led the coalition government with the Conservative Party, during the First World War. But in the 1922 election the first after the First World War ended the Conservatives came to power and Liberal Party was reduced to the third position with the newly formed Labour Party emerging as the official Opposition.

Since then, the Liberal Party has remained in the margins of British politics, never a serious contender for power, despite several mergers--acquisitions (its new face, Liberal Democrats, shared power as a junior partner with the Conservatives in 2010, but in 2015, the Conservative Party comfortably won the elections on its own and the Liberals were handed down a humiliating defeat by the electorate). For almost a century now, the Liberals have not been in the driver’s seat in the British politics.

Is the Congress hurtling down a similar journey?
After the 2014 Lok Sabha election, the Congress managed to retain its position as the main Opposition party, though it could not be recognised as the official Opposition as it did not have the required number in the Lok Sabha (1--10th of the total members of the House). The series of state elections after the 2014 national election show that the Congress is losing ground rapidly and it is quite possible that its tally of Lok Sabha MPs would come down sharply in 2019 even from its currently dismal number, just 44 in a House of 543.

It is increasingly becoming evident that the Congress may have to play the second fiddle to some of the regional parties at the national stage, as it has already done in several states like Bihar, Uttar Pradesh and Tamil Nadu. After losing Uttarakhand, the Congress remains in power in three tiny northeastern states (Meghalaya, Mizoram and Manipur), Himachal Pradesh, Karnataka and the Union Territory of Puducherry. From the point of view of political clout, Karnataka is the only state of any consequence. All available indications tell us that the Congress is likely to lose the state to the resurgent BJP in the 2018 Assembly election.

Does that portend the terminal decline of a party which was once synonymous with the Indian democracy? The enthusiasts for the Congress would argue that the Congress might be facing a temporary decline, but it would bounce back to power sooner than later. They would cite the example of the Conservative Party in the United Kingdom which was virtually eclipsed by the Liberals for four decades between 1845 and 1874 but it bounced back in 1885 to send the Liberals out of power for over two decades and finally push the Liberal Party into its sunset years a few years later.

Will the Congress emerge from its current decadence as a born-again Conservative Party or will it go the self-destruct Liberal Party way?
Unfortunately for the party, at such a crucial juncture, there was no leader of stature and wisdom to steer the party through the economic and social convulsion.

Modi appeals to the common people today because he gives the impression of being a relentless crusader against corruption whereas the Congress is held up in popular perception as the party that institutionalised corruption over the decades it was in power. Can Rahul and his team come up with a concrete plan of action to convince the voters that a Congress government would take some tough policy measures to break the back of corruption policies which even Modi is afraid to embrace?

Will the Congress, as a political party, take the lead in coming under the RTI Act, the very progressive legislation it enacted in 2005? Will it put pressure on the government to expedite the enactment of the undiluted Whistleblower Protection Act which was passed by Parliament under the Congress regime but was not enacted? Will the Congress go the whole distance to demand the expeditious enactment of the Timely Delivery of Goods and Services Bill, a Bill which was on the radar of the Congress government but which it dithered in taking to the logical conclusion and which even the BJP government is deliberately winking at?

Modi government has kept away from these substantive anti-corruption measures; it has largely relied on symbolism. If Rahul's Congress wants to resurrect itself, it has to wage a battle of substance, not mere posturing. (Excerpts from an article first published at www.firstpost.com. Reprinted with their permission)

By Nalini R Mohanty

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