Congress leadership must wake up from slumber

The Congress party which has a history of over a century has now taken a backseat thanks to its endless losses in elections at the centre as well as in the states. The Congress is now in search of an appealing and charismatic leader to taste success. But now chances are are very bleak due to lack of foresight in the leadership.

The Congress reached this stage as it never thought that the Gandhi legacy will fade out from the Indian electorate scene. The Congress party never encouraged personality development of its leaders, rather tried to crush those who are gathering mass support assuming that they will become a threat to the High Command one day.

This act of the past is haunting the party without second round leaders and proving suicidal to it. Even the second round leadership used to work more for spilling beans against each other before the high command to be in their good books and gain their confidence, instead of working for the development of the party.

This tu-tu, main-main attitude in the cadre is encouraged and practiced by high command even from the days of Indira Gandhi.

Generations have changed and Indira’s charisma can no longer pull votes for the congress party as statistics are revealing that active voting electorate of India is now in the age group of 20-55 which has not experienced the legacy of Nehru and Indira.

Congress party failed to recognise this fact and still hoping to get votes from the legacy. The Congress is slowly losing the booth level leadership. This fact is not getting into the heads of the leadership as they are surrounded by coterie who are interested to convey only good news(bhajana brundaas).

Even today, after all these debacles leaders are in the race to praise high command instead of introspecting what went wrong. It's time for AICC chief Sonia Gandi and Rahul Gandhi to act swiftly and distance themselves from these ever praising bandwagon and encourage the leaders who are keen on identifying the mistakes of leadership. Hope the Congress opens its eyes before its too late if they are serious about returning to political scene.

Learning from debacles and learning from the opponent is also equally important. Congress being in power for decades has less experience in utilising the role of the opposition. It's always at the comfort to criticise the government on its policies by keeping an eagle eye on the government’s action and bring the government to its knees at times, but this does not come without homework and support of the Parliament, executive and media. The Congress has to learn from the opposition, they should come out of Janpadh and race course roads of Delhi to the streets of India to earn people’s mandate.

Congress party is not learning to act swiftly to attract public attention. For instance why isn't the party demanding the government to pass on the total benefit to consumers on falling global oil prices? Why isn't it conducting dharnas demanding rollback of train and bus fares, drop in goods transport charges in all states? There should be a spiralling effect of reduced oil prices of over 55% on all petroleum and allied products as well as on commodity prices and services, which is not visible or passed on to the consumer. Why didn't the congress party demand a white paper on petroleum price calculation Similarly it could not capitalise on the conversion row instead of hesitating when the government invited the opposition for a debate on the ban of religious conversions? This attitude of the congress party has to change and use the Parliament effectively to convey its opinion to the people of India. Atalji’s speeches in parliament and Advani’s ratha yatras are foundations for the Bharathiya Janata party of the day. Hope congress recognises these facts and learns lessons to become an able opposition which is vital for any democracy.

By Raghubhushan Eranki