The Indian National Congress should learn a lesson from how the elections in Canada have turned out. The ruling Liberal Party, which had plunged in the popularity ratings under its former leader and Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, came back to power with a change in leadership. The new PM, Mark Carney, resurrected the party’s fortunes in the brief space of time after taking over. So, how did it happen? First, the realisation in the party that Trudeau, the glamorous dynast, had lost the people’s support because of his erratic and self-centred politics. Secondly, the decision to change the leader no matter how much he was considered irreplaceable. Thirdly, a new leader was chosen once it became clear that Trudeau would not be able to lead the party to victory. Mark Carney, though not a politician, was recognised as having the leadership potential required to win the voters’ support. There was no hesitation of the kind exhibited by US President Joe Biden in giving up, which gave no time to his Democratic Party to recover.
The number of elections lost by the Congress under its dynastic leader, Rahul Gandhi, is approaching the nineties. And yet the party persists with him as its flag-bearer. This clearly shows that members of the party believe they have no other claim to the people’s support apart from the supposed charisma of the Nehru-Gandhi family. Does the party have no ideology that has followers, or a leader capable of taking it to victory? Or is it that, in a political environment where money plays a big role, the family holds the purse-strings to significant funding?
Is there any surprise that leader after leader with potential and long innings in the party has deserted it and joined the BJP or established a separate outfit? The latest in the crosshairs for showing an independent and non-subservient mindset is Shashi Tharoor. How long can a party survive with such an approach? Or is the party just waiting for the presently dominant BJP to collapse, in the belief that it is the ‘natural’ alternative?
Even if one considers the ideological line being forwarded by Rahul Gandhi that seeks to target ‘dominant’ castes among Hindus on behalf of the ‘historically oppressed’, one finds that those set to benefit are regional parties directly connected to these fragmented identities – be it the SP in UP, the DMK in Tamil Nadu, RJD in Bihar, the TMC in West Bengal, etc. At what level does Congress expect to gather the support required for a return to power? Would it not be better to find a new vote-getter?
