- Congress should learn some lessons from Ahmed Patel’s close shave in the Gujarat Rajya Sabha election
- The party is fighting for survival in the Modi-Shah led political milieu
- It needs to align with allies to remain afloat
- The upcoming Gujarat assembly polls will be a test for the party
- The old and the young in the party need to put their heads together and come up with a workable strategy for survival
There’s little reason for the Congress to celebrate the election of its senior leader and Sonia Gandhi’s chief political aide, Ahmed Patel, to the Rajya Sabha after a bitterly-fought, high-stakes prestige contest with the BJP. Tempting as it is to rejoice that Patel’s success has put BJP President Amit Shah’s nose out of joint, the harsh truth is that the win is a pyrrhic victory for Patel as well as his party.
The signals emerging from the battle in Gujarat should worry the Congress and serve as a wake-up call to Rahul Gandhi who is still waiting for the right moment to take the leadership baton from his mother. Because what the party is battling is not just the existential crisis that Jairam Ramesh talked of so airily. It is fighting for sheer survival in a political milieu in which the Congress as an idea and a party is fast losing relevance.
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If it failed to grasp the gravity of being reduced to just 44 Lok Sabha seats in 2014, if it remained ensconced in its cocoon of self-importance even after successive losses in state elections, surely now, after the near unraveling of its Rajya Sabha campaign in Gujarat, it’s time the Congress woke up and smelt the coffee.
Congress Needs Allies to Survive
There are two clear messages from Gujarat. One, the Congress as we know it is in danger of disintegrating and disappearing from the political landscape in the face of sustained assault from the Modi-Shah led BJP. If the party leadership doesn’t watch out, Modi will actually realise his stated goal of a Congress mukt Bharat.
Two, the only hope for it to stay afloat as the Modi-Shah juggernaut rolls across India is to take a step back, humble itself and seek the help of like-minded regional players to craft an alternative front, in which the Congress will be just one of the parties instead of the central pole. It can no longer aspire to be anything other than a small fish in a big pond.
Patel’s victory underlines just how badly the Congress needs allies just to survive. The man who has been a four-term Rajya Sabha MP from Gujarat would not have won this time, but for the possible support he got from the lone JD(U) MLA and one of the two NCP MLAs. And to get this support, Patel had to get off his high horse and seek them out personally. This is the man who, as a powerhouse during ten years of UPA rule, earned a reputation for being as elusive as the Scarlet Pimpernel.
The crumbling of the Congress in Gujarat in the run up to the Rajya Sabha election speaks of the increasing fragility of the party over the past three years. Amit Shah had only to blow once and the Congress fell like a pack of cards. In no time, it lost six MLAs to the BJP as well as its leader of Opposition in the state assembly Shanker Sinh Vaghela, who took with him five more MLAs. From 56, the Congress’ strength dwindled to 44.
Although it whisked off all 44 remaining MLAs to a luxury resort in Bengaluru to prevent further poaching by the BJP before the crucial Rajya Sabha polls, it could not hold on to them. As the voting figures subsequently showed, three more defected to the BJP.
The Looming Gujarat Assembly Polls
The irony is telling because this is a state where assembly elections are due in three months and the BJP is vulnerable with Patels and Dalits out on the streets in some of the largest protest demonstrations seen in Gujarat in more than a decade. What should have been a low-hanging fruit for the Congress to pick, has turned into a mission impossible – thanks to the disarray in its ranks and the diversion of resources, energy and time into saving the honour of the man, who has been the party’s chief pillar in the state for over three decades.
The upcoming assembly election in Gujarat will indicate whether the Congress has read and absorbed the signals from Patel’s close shave in the Rajya Sabha election. It could for instance, use the state polls to send a message to regional chieftains like Lalu Yadav, Mamata Banerjee, Mayawati and Akhilesh Yadav that it is ready to make an honest attempt to craft an anti-Modi front with them for the 2019 Lok Sabha election.
Need for the Congress to Re-Strategise
A good beginning would be to offer a pre-poll alliance to the NCP, which has already launched its campaign for the assembly, the local JD(U), which has revolted against Nitish Kumar, and other independents with a mass base. If this means accepting a smaller share of seats to contest, so be it.
At least the Congress would have signaled its willingness to lower its profile to put up a credible fight against Modi.
A pre-poll alliance in Gujarat may not win against the BJP in the current circumstances. But it could possibly give the BJP a run for its money. At the very least, it would be a good experiment as a first step towards proper Opposition unity instead of the half-baked attempts seen so far.
Importantly, Rahul and his team will have to understand that the old guard probably has more politics in their little finger than the younger elements have in their entire body. This is not the time to jettison old warhorses like Ahmed Patel. This is the time for the old and the young to put their heads together and come up with a workable strategy for survival.
Otherwise, the Congress will be reduced to a footnote in the RSS project to rewrite history.
(The writer is a Delhi-based senior journalist. This is an opinion piece and the views expressed above are the author’s own. The Quint neither endorses nor is responsible for the same.)
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