Opinion Congress needs to promote strong regional leaders, not Rahul Gandhi

His failure to strike a chord with the voters have seen the Congress decimated once again in the heartland state of Uttar Pradesh.

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Kanishka Singh

New DelhiMarch 12, 2017 03:24 PM IST First published on: Mar 12, 2017 at 03:24 PM IST

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Captain Amarinder Singh will become the next CM of Punjab

Saturday’s assembly election results from five states have shown that the Congress needs strong regional leaders to take centre stage if the party wishes to ensure its survival in the national political space. The time has come for Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi to limit himself to the backroom and allow other leaders to grow. His failure to strike a chord with the voters have seen the Congress decimated once again in the heartland state of Uttar Pradesh. It seems the voters turn on the Congress in places where Rahul spearheads the party’s poll campaign. The uncertainty among people about his political acumen is only amplified by his several faux pas and reluctance to take over as Congress president.

Granted that there was a huge anti-incumbency factor in Punjab and the SAD-BJP alliance was set to lose power. The Aam Aadmi Party was also positioned to split the votes and take a stronger position in the state. In fact, in the initial period of the campaign, it was getting high ratings as well. But, Amarinder’s strong leadership, aided with Navjot Sidhu’s late entry, gave the Congress a massive victory. Amarinder was by all means the accepted CM candidate, the manifesto was designed, written around him and his personality. Meanwhile, when Rahul was busy trying to match PM Modi’s presidential style campaign in UP, Amarinder lead Congress from the front in Punjab.

In Manipur, Okram Ibobi Singh’s 15-year reign seemed to be in danger of coming to an end but he managed to pull the party across the finish line as the single largest player in the state. Same was the result in Goa where Chief Minister Laxmikant Parsekar lost the election and his BJP failed to overtake Congress as the single largest party.

In Uttar Pradesh, the fight was between Samajwadi Party chief and Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav, his poll partner Congress led by Rahul Gandhi in the state, Bahujan Samaj Party’s Mayawati and BJP’s face Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

The UPA government’s 10-year rule was mired with a string of massive scams amounting to lakhs of crores of rupees. Its public image has taken a beating and the failings of the puppet UPA government have impacted its state units as well. Against the clean image that PM Modi portrays, Rahul can never take the BJP on his own. His undoing was that when Congress president Sonia Gandhi gave him charge, he started shuffling state units and placing young leaders at the helm and muscling out established, accepted, Sonia-loyalist Congressmen from Pradesh Congress Units. The situation is such that in states like UP there are no tall leaders who can revive the party anymore. This experiment has been extremely detrimental to the party. Congress’ weakness at the state and ground level thus has resulted in massive defeats.

It is true that the party needs young blood but that transformation cannot come from Rahul Gandhi. Leaders like Amarinder are the ones who can revive Congress and Rahul must take a role similar to that of Sonia — of controlling the party from the back room.