Not only have Rahul's efforts yielded slim pickings, his wavering bets on people evokes a revolving door.
ET Bureau
The failures of the Congress party and its president Rahul Gandhi have been dissected closely in the aftermath of the grand old party’s general election rout.
The litany of shortcomings has also attracted the pushback that it is unfair to blame one man for the electoral vanquishing of a whole party or an ideology. One’s political sympathies will likely be the greatest determinant of the side of the argument one finds more compelling.
But there is one aspect of Gandhi’s organisational work — one that has been an avowed priority for more than a decade, since he became the party’s general secretary in 2007 — that can be justly scrutinised without the distortion field of the election that just went by.
RAJA BRAR: Lost against SAD’s Harsimrat Badal in Bathinda
RAJIV SATAV: Former MP from Hingoli in Maharashtra
VIJAY INDER SINGLA*: PWD minister in Punjab
OMKAR SINGH MARKAM: Tribal affairs minister in MP government
PARESH DHANANI: Leader of Opposition in Gujarat assembly (*Eden and Singla are children of former Congress MPs but benefited from Rahul’s support nonetheless)
“I am the symptom of the disease that plagues the Congress today. The party needs to open up. Young people with non-political background should get chances,” Gandhi had declared, in 2007. The message was clear: Nepotism must end and fresh talent should get a chance in politics. Gandhi focused on reviving party wings such as the Youth Congress and the National Students Union of India through internal elections and related initiatives.
While Gandhi has steadily risen in the party since, becoming vice-president and ultimately president, the results of the talent-spotting and mentoring exercise have been mixed, at best. It is hard to point out anyone else in the Congress who has had as quick a rise as the party president himself.
In comparison, in the principal rival, the Bharatiya Janata Party, Nirmala Sitharaman went from being a new party member to the defence minister of the country in just about a decade.
BJP has a number of stories to show for successful talent-spotting and swift ascents within the party and government, both organically and via defections from other parties, including the Congress — Himanta Biswa Sarma of Assam being a high-profile example. To be sure, Gandhi has made efforts, and they have yielded some fruit.
Four talent hunts have been held in the last 12 years. Some 40 young leaders were picked up in the first round held in 2007 and another 20 in 2011 on the basis of four rounds of interviews and training sessions.
One of them was Remya Haridas from Kerala who won the Alathur Lok Sabha polls this year to become the only Dalit woman Lok Sabha MP from the state. Daughter of a daily wage labourer, she broke the class ceiling within the Congress in 2019.
Sidelined Now, But Used to be Close to Rahul Gandhi
MADHUSUDAN MISTRY: In 2014, he was put in charge of key states but has now been moved to fringe roles
CP JOSHI: The former rural development minister is now the Rajasthan Assembly Speaker.
KANISHKA SINGH: The former investment banker was at one point a prominent member of Rahul’s inner circle.
MEENAKSHI NATARAJAN: Mandsaur’s ex-MP and former NSUI president was once seen as having been handpicked by Rahul for greater responsibilities.
DEEPAK BABARIA: The AICC in-charge for MP is considered by many to be a poor choice for his lack of political acumen.
MOHAN PRAKASH: A general secretary, he was removed as Maharashtra Congress chief over performance issues.
G MOHAN GOPAL: Chairman of Rajiv Gandhi Institute of Contemporary Studies, he was one of the leaders credited for Rahul’s aggressive posturing.
“Rahul gave me the opportunity and the confidence. I still remember his words from back then: a booth-level worker is the real worker in any party,” reminisces Haridas, who holds a PhD and is known for using folk songs as a medium of political communication. She defeated CPM’s PK Biju.
Her message and memories find resonance elsewhere. Another first-time MP, Jothimani S, who won from Karur in Tamil Nadu, says: “I can proudly say that I was one of the first beneficiaries of Rahulji’s talent hunt exercise from 2007.
He openly said the party is generally closed for public. To get an entry one needs introduction by an influential person. All this has to end.” Exemplifying victory of fresh talent over incumbents, she turned out to be a giant slayer by defeating four-time AIADMK MP and Lok Sabha Deputy Speaker M Thambidurai by a margin of 4.2 lakh votes. Congress contested the elections in an alliance with the DMK.
Apart from talent hunts, at the party’s 84th plenary session in Delhi in 2018, Gandhi promised to build a new Congress with talented young people, stressing the need to change the party organisation. “My first task would be to break the wall that exists between the workers and senior leaders.
This organisation (Congress) needs to change. The worker sitting in the last row has the energy to change the nation but there is a wall standing between them and our leaders,” he had said.
Those Who Matter (Inner Circle)
K RAJU: The former IAS officer runs Rahul Gandhi’s secretariat
SAM PITRODA: Gandhi family friend and Chief of India Overseas Congress has a knack for poorly timed statements
PRAVEEN CHAKRAVARTY: Former MD of BNP Paribas India, headed the party’s data analytics team
KAUSHAL VIDYARTHEE: This Oxford graduate is Rahul Gandhi’s personal aide
Those Who Matter (Party Organisation)
Ahmed Patel Priyanka Gandhi Vadra Anand Sharma KC Venugopal Ghulam Nabi Azad AK Antony Mallikarjun Kharge
But more than a decade after Gandhi started this mission, he continues to be seen as sharing the greatest rapport with the Congress club of dynasts such as Jyotiraditya Scindia, Sachin Pilot, Jiten Prasada, Gaurav Gogoi and others.
Party insiders defend the president’s talent promotion initiatives. “In almost every state, you will find young leaders he spotted and nurtured. They are being groomed by Rahul Gandhi himself,” says a Congress leader, who asked not to be named because he is not authorised to speak to the media.
The list includes Raja Brar (two-time MLA from Punjab), Hibi Eden (NSUI president and twotime MLA from Kerala), Rajiv Satav (MLA and Youth Congress president in Maharashtra), Roju John (general secretary and an MLA in Kerala), Devendra Yadav (AICC secretary and Rajasthan co-in-charge), Vikas Upadhyay (MLA from Chhattisgarh), Jitu Patwari (minister in MP government), Ashok Chandna (Rajasthan PCC president), Girish Chodarkar (Goa PCC president), Paresh Dhanani (leader of Gujarat CLP), Omkar Singh Markam (tribal minister in MP), Geeta Kora (MP from Jharkhand), Kamleshwar Patel (minister in MP), Mukesh Bhakar (MLA in Rajasthan) and Ravneet Bittu (MP from Punjab).
Rahul Gandhi has nurtured and groomed many leaders like me who come from a humble background. At the same time he gives a lot of space to each one to function” Jothimani S, Karur MP
“The leadership played a big role in spotting and nurturing them. All are from the younger generation,” the leader says. Senior leaders who have fallen out of favour narrate a different story. “While his chosen few have complete access, others have to often wait for hours and even days to meet him.”
If Gandhi has had limited success in forging frontline leaders, his track record in picking and sticking with his inner circle at work hasn’t been a whole lot better. A combination of Congress leaders who are in favour at the moment as well as key members of his office, who are typically not politicians, form his circle of closest advisers. But this club has an invisible revolving door.
Election defeats are known to spur the door into turning, and sometimes people fall out of favour rather abruptly. Besides, many handpicked members have proven underwhelming, displaying none of the political savvy of the advisers that former Congress chief and Rahul’s mother Sonia Gandhi surrounded herself with. This also casts a shadow on Rahul’s eye for talent and his inability to back the chosen ones through thick and thin. Kanishka Singh, who was at one time seen as Gandhi’s closest aide, is nowhere as influential as he used to be.
G Mohan Gopal, who was made the chairman of Rajiv Gandhi Institute of Contemporary Studies, was seen to be among Gandhi’s closest advisers. Coming under heavy fire within the party after the 2014 elections, his stock is said to have dipped considerably. K Raju, a retired IAS officer, runs Rahul Gandhi’s secretariat and is the chairman of INC’s SC department. He is currently under heavy fire from within the party for the 2019 results. Sam Pitroda, the Gandhi family friend with a knack for poorly timed statements, is going strong in the inner circle.
Praveen Chakravarty, who headed the data analytics team and whose advice on key matters of the campaign was said to have been heeded by Gandhi, finds himself precariously perched in the inner circle. Madhusudan Mistry, CP Joshi and Meenakshi Natarajan are among those who once held sway in the inner circle but no longer do. Some have quietly withdrawn. Janardan Dwivedi, a self-proclaimed course corrector of the party, resigned as the party’s general secretary last year.
“My father is a daily wager. What more proof does one want to understand that non-dynasts too get a chance in Congress?” Ramya Haridas, Alathur MP
“Congress was never a cadre-based party or a party that cared for talent. It used to bank on regional stalwarts for electoral success in different states. Some have been sidelined, others are working towards selfish ends,” says political analyst JP Shukla.
This contrasts with the BJP. Barely a month after its victory in Lok Sabha polls, party president Amit Shah has already set up a panel for fresh membership drive that will be conducted between July 6 and January 31. “That a booth-level worker cannot just aspire but also become a chief minister or a central minister can happen only in the BJP.
More than 80% of our office-bearers are from humble backgrounds,” says Bhupendra Yadav, BJP general secretary. He cites a number of examples to back up his claim: Tripura CM Biplab Dev was a BJP booth-level worker, Maharashtra CM Devendra Fadnavis started as a ward member, Amit Shah was a booth-level worker and so were Himachal Pradesh CM Jairam Thakur, Jharkhand CM Raghubar Das, Haryana CM Manohar Lal Khattar, Union ministers Narender Singh Tomar, Nityanand Rai and Nitin Gadkari, among others.
The Congress leader who spoke on the condition of anonymity says the lack of a steady pipeline of grassroots leaders is one of the biggest challenges the party is facing. “At one time there were just two secretaries in the Congress and yet it was the biggest party in India. Today there are at least 100. The biggest problem is that they have never been an ordinary worker so they do not understand his trials and tribulations,” the leader adds.
Says Shashi Tharoor, Congress MP from Thiruvananthapuram, “The Congress has always recognised merit and hard work and has never shied away from pushing forward individuals to key positions irrespective of whether they came from political pedigree or not. My own career of over a decade in Indian politics has been a lived experience of this reality.”
Tharoor was widely known as a writer and UN diplomat long before he joined politics. For others with political ambitions, despite good intentions, Congress remains a difficult choice.
“Booth-level Work Will be Priority”
Shashi Tharoor, Congress MP from Thiruvananthapuram, tells Prerna Katiyar the party must decide what it stands for and communicate that effectively. Excerpts:
Should non-dynasts be given more opportunities to rise up the ranks?
I think to look at this as an ‘either-or’ situation trivialises the deeper and fundamental issues that we in the Congress recognise we must address to ensure the progress of the party.
For one, the presence of a generous sprinkling of ‘dynasts’ remains a key feature of parties across the political spectrum — even among the most vocal self-professed critics of this feature.
But to address your point, the Congress has always recognised merit and hard work and has never shied away from pushing forward individuals to key positions irrespective of whether they came from political pedigree or not. My own career of over a decade in politics has been a lived experience of this reality.
Is there a need for fresh talent-spotting and boothbuilding across states? I do think the Congress is rightly accused of having lost touch with the grassroots in many states and it is important for us to pay even more attention to the work at the booth level to ensure that the fundamentals of the party remain strong.
This will be a priority area for the Congress and will indeed serve as a bridgehead in the larger revival plan that the party will embark on in the immediate future.
What is needed to revive the Congress? In addition to strengthening our grassroot foundations, we must also decide what we stand for and do better to communicate it effectively and repeatedly. The Congress has historically been the political embodiment of India’s pluralism and has been a strong and committed voice for the preservation of secularism as its fundamental reflection.
We need to reaffirm our belief in these values and keep reiterating them at every opportunity. At the same time, there are other areas that we must focus on, such as being a strong and constructive opposition, both inside and outside Parliament.
We need to also explore pragmatic coalitions so as to strengthen the anti-government space, while also doing our best to wield leverage on the central government through the issue of Centre-state relations. And moving forward, we must not make the mistake of allowing the BJP to monopolise the nationalist narrative.
ET Bureau
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