‘Congress raised by parents vs by help’: AICC Session in Gujarat after 60 yrs, old-timers lay out task before Rahul Gandhi

Rahul, who arrived in Gujarat for a two-day visit on Friday, is in the state exactly a month before the All India Congress Committee (AICC) session in April that is being held in Gujarat after 64 years. Partymen from that era see a world of difference in the Congress, once a powerful monolith now struggling to keep its position even as the main Opposition party.

The convener of the Gujarat Congress’s disciplinary committee, 92-year-old Balubhai Patel, was among the Seva Dal volunteers who helped set up the venue for the 1961 AICC session in Bhavnagar. Patel said he misses the “simplicity” of leaders such as Jawaharlal Nehru, who was then Prime Minister.

The Bhavnagar session was held soon after Gujarat was carved out of the Bombay Presidency following the Mahagujarat Movement. The chief minister of the new state at the time was Jivraj Mehta. Patel, the Seva Dal’s district in-charge in Sabarkantha at the time, recalled how the volunteer organisation had “full-time workers like the RSS” and was tasked with setting up temporary toilets and manning kitchens.

A year and a half later, Patel attended the AICC session in Bangalore with his wife, a member of the Mahila Congress. “Jawaharlal ji came and sat cross-legged with us on the floor because we were all sweating under the sun. Seeing him, Morarjibhai (Desai, who later became PM) and other leaders on stage also came and joined.”

The party organisation then and now, according to Patel, is as different as a “child raised by a parent and a child raised by help”. “Earlier they would care for the worker, his every small need,” Patel said.

Patel rued the fact that the party had forgotten this simplicity. “With power, a person becomes humble, but in this case, people become proud,” he told The Indian Express.

According to Patel, doing things together, be it installing VIP enclosures, spinning khadi for the linen, setting up the dining area for the attendees at such events, bonded the party together. “These are the foundation of an organisation; it is not strengthened only by talk”, he said.

The problem now

On Friday, as Rahul Gandhi met every-level leaders of the party in Gujarat, he asked “why they were not able to do their assigned jobs”, a source said. Party leaders cited reasons such as “groupism” and “lack of resources”.

While speaking to party workers on Saturday, Rahul said Congress had been unable to “fulfil the expectations of people of Gujarat” in the past three decades due to a section of Congress leaders “conniving with the BJP from within”. “There are two types of people in the Gujarat Congress leadership and among workers. Those who are honest with people, fight for them, respect them and have the ideology of the Congress in their heart. And the others who are cut off from the people sit far away, do not respect them, and half of whom are with the BJP,” he said.

A former MLA, who is from the Dalit community, told The Indian Express how, of late, “casteism” had crept into the party. “People of certain castes get precedence,” he said.

“The idea of ‘this is not my man, so I won’t work for him’ overrides every attempt to revive the party. Nobody ensures at the booth level that the dedicated voter comes to vote,” the leader added.

A former Rajya Sabha MP said, “There might be grand things said before Rahul ji, but where are the workers? We have not been able to raise either workers or leaders… Nobody will openly criticise the party in front of Rahul because that will dishearten the cadres.”

Comparing the situation then and now, former Union Minister and Planning Commission member Yogendra Makwana, 92, remembered how he had once confronted PM Indira Gandhi outside the AICC headquarters in Delhi soon after the Congress split in 1969 into the “Indicate” — those who backed Indira — and the “Syndicate” groups.

“It was ahead of Assembly elections and most of the tickets had been given to the Syndicate group that had abused her, while we who stood by her were ignored,” said Makwana, recalling how he stood on a stool in a crowd of ticket hopefuls, and recreated the “Hyde Park Speakers’ Corner”, a landmark in London.

“Yeh gaddar log hai (they are traitors). They will not listen to you. You fought against those who abused Indira and she has put them in positions of power,” he recalled telling the crowd before Seva Dal workers took him to Indira.

“I told her, ‘When nobody was with you, we were with you.’ She felt I was right. She made me sit, gave me water and tea, and asked me to speak my mind. I did. But tickets had been distributed by then, so I asked her to make me in-charge of elections and she did,” Makwana said.

Asked if that would be possible today, he said, “If this happens today, they will throw them out of the party. Nobody will even care for them. At that time people cared, stood by you… Today, you see those who don’t get tickets go to other parties.”

In 2008, Makwana quit the Congress after being removed as chairperson of the AICC Scheduled Caste department for publicly criticising the party. Later, he launched and briefly ran the National Bahujan Congress. His son Bharat was a Congress MLA from 1998 to 2002 from the Sojitra Assembly seat in Anand. In 2024, he unsuccessfully contested the Lok Sabha elections from the Scheduled Caste-reserved Ahmedabad West seat.

Makwana said the basic difference was that workers earlier would work for the party but today “they look for comfort”. “Once elected, they don’t care”, he said, adding how the options of different parties had destroyed the unified goal of working for the country. His son Bharat said, “Sycophancy has taken the stage and money has become primary.”

“Firstly, leadership has to have an open mind, open ears and openness in general. They should be able to understand what the karyakarta is saying. They should listen to grassroots workers and assign them as per their calibre. There are people to finance, but if you don’t show any competence, no industry is going to finance you,” said Bharat, adding how internal democracy was a must.

Ramnik Pandya, 86, a three-time Bhavnagar mayor who was part of the 1961 AICC session also recalled the informality with which Nehru and Indira met party workers. “Today, there is a huge gap between the high command and the worker. Even today there are many workers who have not quit the party, they should be activated,” he told The Indian Express.

Gujarat Pradesh Congress Committee chief and Rajya Sabha MP Shaktisinh Gohil said, “We are fighting against all odds, ahankar (arrogance), but democracy is all about people power.”

On Rahul’s challenge to the state unit to form the government in 2027, Gohil said, “One should not predict. What happened in Delhi? After winning the local polls, they (AAP) lost… Never underestimate the people. Gujarat follows the Gandhi model.”