CONGRESS TOOK ‘U-TURN’ ON CWC; ‘RAHUL EFFECT’ UNSEEN; MODI-SHAH CONTINUE TO BE A TOWERING CHALLENGE: Dr CHANDRA

Reflecting on the recently formed Congress Working Committee (CWC), Dr Jagdeesh Chandra, CEO and Editor-in-Chief, Bharat24-Vision of New India; CMD and Editor-in-Chief of First India reveals how Congress party has broken its promises made during Udaipur Chintan Shivir aimed at overhauling the party and its image at national level. Dr Chandra also critically examines how Rahul Gandhi has surrendered before the family and in a way appears to have taken a sabbatical, how the CWC has, yet again, fallen into the hands of the old guard and how the young turks have been given only a ceremonial representation in the CWC. Excerpts… (Part I)

• Is the new Congress Working Committee a UTurn by Rahul Gandhi?
  Dr Jagdeesh Chandra: Congress’ new working committee is Rahul Gandhi’s surrender before the system, before the arrangement, before the pressure of the Gandhi family and other factors. Owing to pressure from all quarters, it seems Rahul Gandhi has let go of his own political philosophy with which he had joined the Congress i.e. new blood will bring transformation in the party and that Rahul will take the party to newer heights and bring new people in the party. But it seems that due to outside factors which are compelling factors too, Rahul Gandhi has accepted defeat. He seems tired and is alone in this crowd of Congress and perhaps that is why he goes on ‘yatras’ to places like London and Ladakh. When he looks at the world standing at the top of some peak at 14,000 feet in Ladakh, perhaps he feels some calm that he is out of the day-to-day tussles within the Congress and that he is out of the scope of reforms which the Congress party’s first family stops from happening. On the flip side, when he stands at that height, he is dwarfed by Narendra Modi and Amit Shah standing on much higher ground than Rahul. He can not counter them. Rahul is carrying on like a person adamant at struggling through life, but he is doing all that alone and he is perhaps devoid of the ability to take the entire party and organisation forward. So, he is doing everything as a single unit, and whatever benefit the party will get from it, it will get later. So if you ask if this is Rahul Gandhi’s U-Turn, then yes, it is definitely so because the expectations that Rahul Gandhi had from the reorganisation of Congress party, those expectations have not been met with this working committee and one can term it failure or surrender or anything else that one may like. In totality, Rahul Gandhi must not be happy with all these developments.

• Rahul had announced that in future, CWC members would also be elected and not selected. Why did it not come to pass?
  He had indeed said so and this statement was made at the time of the original CWC, which had 23 seats. In the party’s constitution, there was this provision that half the seats should be filled with election and half with appointment and if due to some reason election is not held, then appointment can be done on those seats. But what has happened suddenly is that no one asked anything and the meeting of steering committee was not held. The question then rises as to who gave Mallikarjun Kharge the power to not follow the party’s constitution and do away with election while carrying out appointments on their own? So, the basic theme of bringing internal democracy in the party has been shattered. Thus, Rahul Gandhi’s dream that there would be internal democracy in the party, has been left in the lurch and perhaps that is why the people say that this is also a UTurn of Rahul and Sonia from their promise to the people.

• Has the Congress taken a U-Turn on its promise of appointment of leaders under the age of 50 to half of the positions in the CWC?
  Unfortunately Congress could not keep up with its own promise. There are only handful of individuals in this new CWC, who are under 50 years of age like Pilot, Gogoi and Kamleshwar or perhaps a few others like Hooda. But the parameter the party had set for itself when it said that 50 % people would be under 50 years of age, that parameter has not been followed. Hence, it is said that Rahul or Congress’ commitment on this front has not been fulfilled. So, you can say it was a U-Turn or a failure. It was a major decision of Congress as a national party. There may have been pressure, or appeasement or compulsion, after all human beings are bound by situations, but the result of all these situations was that Congress that had made a claim on its own that it will be more democratic, that dream has been shattered.

• Do you think there was nothing new in Congress’ exercise and all individuals who have been directing the party have been accommodated in CWC?
  Definitely. There is an entire line of leaders that form the ‘Margdarshak Mandal’ of Congress in which you have Manmohan Singh, Ambika Soni, AK Antony, Chidambaram, Salman Khurshid, Tariq Anwar, Digvijaya Singh etc. So the point is that in BJP, there are a handful of people who fall in that block of ‘Margdarshak Mandal’ but in Congress, its completely reverse, as 70 out of 84 leaders fall in that category. Hence, it is said that entire CWC is Congress’ ‘Margdarshak Mandal.’

• Does Rahul Gandhi’s promise of ‘Generation Change’ through CWC appointment is a thing of the past? Has it turned out to be a lie?
  Very unfortunate. It can be said that Rahul Gandhi has met with an accident on this front. What a dream it was and what thought was given to it that young brigade, new faces and new energy would be pumped into the grand-old party! But look at it today. The party has come back to the old guard and it is said that there is no substitute for experienced people. Just imagine, the average age of CWC members is 61 years with Manmohan Singh at 90 years being the oldest, followed by Kharge at 82 years, Ambika Soni at 82 followed by Antony, Chidambaram and others. So, the basic thought that young blood would be inducted and the party’s face would be changed through CWC has turned out to be a flop show and one can say it is a complete U-Turn.

• Congress had said after its Udaipur Chintan Shivir that it will start two departments - Election Management and Public Feedback. But these departments were not formed. What were the reasons?
  This is not that big an issue, but it is more like non-compliance because there were other major agendas. This was comparatively a smaller agenda and perhaps no heed was paid to it. But yes, it can be said that, on paper, this was also a promise which has not been fulfilled.

• In this new CWC, an effort has been made to somehow create a balance between the old and young. Do you think Sonia Gandhi and Mallikarjun Kharge have been successful in this?
  To a large extent, yes. They have taken a few young leaders and there are more leaders from the old block. Effort has been made even in the states. For example, if there is Channi in Punjab, then there is Ambika Soni also. You can say that an attempt has been made to take everyone along and unite everyone and like it was said earlier, it appears that Congress is at its best, as far as organisation is concerned. But it seems that instead of merit, Congress has merely gone through the motions and reached the number of 84 appointment. However, one thing is certain that the command has come back to the old guard.

• When we talk of the new CWC, does it imply that Sonia Gandhi has once again become Congress President through it?
  Truth be told, this is Sonia’s return into the Congress. Party’s command has come back, through Kharge, in Sonia hands. All the old loyalists of the party who left and joined the G20, all of them have returned in the CWC and thus, it is being said that it is a Sonia nominated CWC.

• Has Mallikarjun Kharge played any role in the appointments in new CWC? Has he finally come out of the ‘rubber stamp’ image?
  No, he has not come out of that ‘rubber stamp’ image fully, but yes, he has been partly successful in blurring that image. There is no doubt that Kharge has provided immense stability to Congress as its President and has brought everyone together. He has proved to be a good manager, who has brought back even those who had become disgruntled. So, you can say that he has performed well as regards the new CWC.

• It took ten months to form the new CWC. What caused such a delay?
  See, when there is immense pressure, and decisive leaders are not around, then such things happen. Congress always had three power-centres in Sonia, Rahul and Priyanka. Then the OSDs of these leaders also wielded some influence and some of these influencers have been accommodated in the committee. Then another power centre is Kharge. More so, when a committee like this is formed, then it has to be kept in mind how women, OBCs, Dalits, Minorities and other sections are being represented in the committee. So in carrying out this permutation and combination, it took ten months. And as such it is said that delays have been a natural phenomenon in Congress for years, even after Rahul came into picture. In fact, the party should be thankful to Kharge that he created some sort of momentum and got the ball rolling. But still ten months’ time was taken and Congress leaders should be thankful to Kharge that at least some work has been done. Now, there will be appointment of Secretaries which is another major challenge that the party will have to take up. Then General Secretaries would be appointed and there would be all kinds of pressures mounted on the central leadership as there have been various ‘power centres.’ Then there are in-charges and those, who are aiming for a party ticket for assembly elections are making a beeline for these incharges, which has created another power centre in the party. People say that ticket distribution is like a business now. As a party, Congress is not prepared to contest polls and it has already wasted ten months and it should not be expected from the new CWC that it would work as a motivating factor for 2023 Assembly or 2024 General elections.

TO BE CONTINUED…

During the show #JConRahulUTurn trended top All-India on Twitter