Opinion Best of both sides | Congress has lost the will to win

The party also lacks a narrative that pulls the heartstrings in India 2025. Nor, for that matter, is it laying out a vision, as the country’s main opposition party, to prepare India for the rapid changes that are around the corner, with artificial intelligence likely to threaten jobs on a scale difficult to imagine and a tariff war on our doorstep.

After the kickstart of the 2024 elections, almost doubling the party’s numbers to 99 in the new Lok Sabha, Congress is now back to square one. Quick to course-correct, the Narendra Modi-led BJP has, on the other hand, managed to regain its grip over the government with runaway successes in Haryana, Maharashtra and Delhi. It has kept the allies in line — they came around to supporting the Waqf Amendment Bill — and sorted out differences with the RSS leadership, as is evident from Modi’s recent meeting with Mohan Bhagwat in Nagpur.

Given the invincibility of the Modi-led BJP, Congress seems to be of the view that it has to bide its time till the “default moment”— when people get disillusioned with Modi and, by default, turn to Congress. Then, not having an organisation may not matter. After all, this has happened in the past — as in 2004, when the party unexpectedly came to head the UPA government. Then, too, the party’s organisation was not particularly strong (though it was stronger than it is today).

The absence of a strong organisation may not have mattered when the Congress was taking on the BJP of Atal Bihari Vajpayee and L K Advani. But it is another ball game when it is pitted against Modi and Amit Shah, who have over the last 10 years built a formidable political organisation.

Whatever the alibis that Congress leaders may offer for the state they find themselves in, there is no alternative to building an effective organisation that can convert sentiment into votes. But Congress has forgotten how to mobilise people around issues that agitate them.

Rahul Gandhi’s mega yatras across the length and breadth of India helped him shed his “Pappu” image. (One aspect of the saffron party’s strategy now seems to be to ensure that he does not acquire stature as the LOP). While the first Bharat Jodo Yatra helped him reinvent his image, the two yatras were not really utilised to strengthen the party. Given the response he got, the party could have organised “shivirs” in the places he visited to generate political energy and induct new faces.

Rahul Gandhi, who is the undeclared leader of Congress — and clearly the party has no other option, nor a desire to find one, with sister Priyanka’s role still largely undefined — plugs away against crony capitalism (Adani, Ambani) and for a “caste census”. Caste census is a short form for an ideological framework — of getting together the OBCs, Dalits, and Muslims, almost 90 per cent of the voters, under the Congress umbrella. It was the support of the Dalits — as also a united Opposition — that had brought down the BJP tally to 240 in 2024.

Though consistent in his stand, and courageous in taking on his powerful opponents, Rahul Gandhi has not caught the imagination of the country as the alternative to what Modi has to offer. And that is not only because of the huge resources at the BJP’s command or the use — and threatened use — of government agencies against opponents.

While many things ail the Congress today, essentially the party lacks fire in its belly and the will to win. Congress has been about power, and people have flocked to it for that reason — and power is about winning elections, without which programmes, agendas, ideology become meaningless. Can Rahul Gandhi afford to talk about Congress revival (in Gujarat) as a “50-year project” and get the attention of Gen Z, the Millennials or even Gen X, who are raring to get things done? Those who will watch the forthcoming AICC session in Ahmedabad (April 8-9) will want to know the game plan to win Gujarat in 2027.

Congress has got used to taking its defeats philosophically. It’s almost as if the party leadership has decided to let things die and start rebuilding after that (But by then, there may be nothing left to rebuild).

There may be an element of truth in a Congress leader’s remark that while Modi and Shah represent the first generation of political entrepreneurs, with a deep hunger (for power), Rahul Gandhi represents the fifth generation of rulers, who believe that power is their due and will come to them at the right moment — and they can afford to wait for it.

The writer is contributing editor, The Indian Express