Opinion The hand that clutches tight
For all Rahul Gandhis vows,the Congress is hard to change
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There is palpable tension in the air at 24,Akbar Road. Senior Congress leaders are twitchy with anticipation of a reshuffle,both in the organisation and the Union cabinet. The crowds outside their offices are disgruntled too,with their many stories about the organisational election and its perceived wrongs.
A powerful general secretary in the Chhattisgarh Congress,for instance,got 11 of his relatives and associates elected as PCC delegates. The list of 199 delegates from the state also included at least four paid party employees. Sensing outrage in the rank and file,the Central leadership has withheld the PCC list but nobody is convinced. The octogenarian AICC treasurer ,Motilal Vora,still remains a source of strength to many in his home state.
Parliamentarians and legislators from Uttar Pradesh talk of massive corruption in the organisational elections,with details of how PCC delegate-lists,elected through due process,were changed later. Party workers held a sit-in outside the Congress headquarters in New Delhi. Within days,UPCC delegates were asked to meet in Lucknow and they passed a unanimous resolution authorising Congress president Sonia Gandhi to nominate their state unit chief. The UPCC was sharply divided between loyalists of the incumbent chief,Rita Bahuguna Joshi,and those of the Congress Legislature Party leader Pramod Tiwari. A direct election could have given a measure of their standing,but Central leaders like Digvijaya Singh were present at the UPCC meeting to ensure the unanimous resolution.
The Punjab Congress has also been murmuring about favouritism and nepotism 65 of the 235 PCC delegates are said to be related to influential leaders. They are expected to meet to pass the unanimous resolution authorising Sonia Gandhi to nominate the PCC president.
Over a dozen newly elected PCCs,equally divided over the choice of leaders,have already passed similar resolutions and the rest are in the process. To sum up the organisational election in the Congress: from booth to block,district and state level committees,delegates were allotted to influential leaders at different levels and then elected unanimously.
When Rahul Gandhi was inducted as AICC general secretary in September 2007,he had set out to end the nomination culture,holding internal elections in the Youth Congress and the NSUI. On Thursday in Kolkata,he reiterated that he was responsible only for the Youth Congress and the NSUI,and he could not tell others about their responsibility.
Many in the 125-year-old party are unconvinced. The future of the Congress cannot be confined to any boundaries,and he is not averse to expanding his outreach from Bundelkhand in UP and Vidarbha in Maharashtra to the Niyamgiri hills in Orissa. His increasing interest in party affairs and governance has been noted with satisfaction. So why was he looking the other way when his party junked his ideas of internal democracy?
While Sonia Gandhis re-election as Congress president was always a fait accompli,his ideas could have been implemented at least up to the state level. It would have also provided a reality check about the worth of many state satraps who punch above their electoral weight in the organisation.
When Indira Gandhi started the process of centralising power,her decision was prompted by the bitter battle of succession that she had to fight with the Syndicate of powerful regional leaders with a mass-base. While Sonia Gandhi faced some early resistance especially from the Sharad Pawar-P.A. Sangma-Tariq Anwar triumvurate those times were different. Many within and outside the party could then contemplate a Congress beyond the Nehru-Gandhi family. But today,an ambitious Congressman would shudder to think of the party without the family. And yet,Rahul is reluctant to implement his revolutionary idea in the party.
For all his fresh appeal to the young,Rahul does not appear averse to the old-fashioned way of politics evident from his tolerance for those with dubious backgrounds,in the Youth Congress and its parent organisation. Maqsood Khan,the Youth Congress president of East Zone,UP,is a case in point. He had reportedly been booked under the Gangster Act and even jailed,but these charges were dismissed as politically motivated. The newly-elected Bihar Youth Congress president,Lallan Kumar,was known as the right-hand man of Pappu Yadav,who was convicted for an MLAs murder. At a recent rally in Saharsa,Rahul did not mind sharing the dais with Ranjeeta Ranjan,Pappus wife,and Lovely Anand,the wife of Anand Mohan Singh who is also serving a jail term. In the Delhi University elections,the ABVP made an issue of an NSUI candidates tainted record. During Rahuls visit to Kolkata this week,Mohammad Rafiq,TMC chief Mamata Banerjees former pointsman,who has faced several criminal cases,was inducted into the Congress.
Many veteran Congressmen view Rahuls new tolerance as indicating his evolution as a leader,one who is learning to accept the compulsions of electoral politics. But only time will tell whether he will give in to them,or whether he is making temporary compromises for a larger purpose.
dk.singh@expressindia.com
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