Ajay K. Mehra 
Rahul Gandhi and the Congress under his leadership have flunked the litmus test in the assembly elections. The Bharat Jodo Yatra has had a limited impact on the sagging image of the party and could not situate Gandhi as a national leader of consequence, let alone an alternative to hugely popular Prime Minister Narendra Modi, irrespective of a large number of analysts continuously listing the negative impact of his majoritarian politics on the society, the constitution, institutions, even the economy.
However, the lone Telangana win shows that there is light at the end of the tunnel for the party. Add to this the earlier Karnataka victory, where the Modi-led BJP had used its entire institutional weight, but the Congress managed with leadership (both national and state), cadre, a programme (populist or otherwise) and an agenda. The Yatra also contributed, in a small measure.
Illustration: Pariplab Chakraborty
Though the question of a non-Nehru-Gandhi presidentship has been addressed by electing octogenarian Mallikarjun Kharge, the two weak points of this quest and process need underlining – first, the search for a ‘loyalist’ (to the Gandhis) and second, Ashok Gehlot neutralising the so-called party high command after the announcement of his name. To his great credit, Kharge has been able to manage the party, iron out the leadership and organisational wrinkles in Karnataka, Rajasthan and Chhattisgarh, but he has fallen short of a fresh and dynamic plan for party-building. Second, the ‘loyalist’ tag imposes limitation of his functioning within a circle drawn by the Gandhis.
Rahul remains the unannounced leader of the party, and Sonia and Priyanka have to be put up on similar pedestals when he and his team (if there is one) takes any organisational decision. This de-institutionalisation does not enthuse the cadre. Despite the party being in power in four states, and with shares in a couple more, it lacked a cadre that Kharge does not seem to be building. Nor is he initiating a dynamic political recruitment process. He could resolve leadership contradictions in Karnataka, Rajasthan and Chhattisgarh, but cracks in the latter two have impacted the party’s electoral fortunes. In each, the cadre is divided behind the warring leaders.
Kharge and his team also can’t articulate alternative national and state-wise narratives for lifting the party’s image. Neither during the Yatra, nor during his campaign in Karnataka and the three poll-bound states could Rahul spell out a narrative that situated him and the party as the political alternative to the Modi-led BJP. Ever since the Congress lost its pre-eminence in 1989 and the Mandal and Mandir movements built up during the 1990s, the party has failed to challenge them. Rahul lost a golden opportunity, when his party led the UPA coalition for a decade, in building a national as well as several local narratives that could situate the party as a dominant choice against sectarian politics.
No wonder, when Narendra Modi came to power in 2014 with the support of the RSS and select corporates he had gathered during his chief ministership of Gujarat, the Congress was at a complete loss about how to articulate itself. It could not produce any script to beat majoritarian, resurgent Hindutva, which termed inclusivity as minority appeasement. This narrative resonated with large sections in the Hindi belt as never before.
In the three states lost, the Congress narrative was to ape the BJP. The soft Hindutva of Kamal Nath, who declared himself to be a ‘Hanuman bhakta (worshipper)’, put up a Hanuman idol, even courted controversial Bageshwar Dham guru Dhirendra Krishna Shastri, could not be a match to the deeply entrenched Hindutva narrative. Rahul did not only allow this, he too would visit temples and appear in public with his vermillion on his forehead, like Modi. Under his leadership, an apprehensive Congress never raised its voice for minority communities, for fear that the BJP would accuse it of minority appeasement. Naturally, their programmes also do not have anything for them.
Rahul needed to be imaginative about the charge of revdi culture, which the Modi government has repackaged as welfare in its own programme. A well-articulated programme on education, health and employment could have helped.
Also read: To Defeat BJP in an Increasingly Bipolar India, the Congress Would Need Much More Passion
Obviously, the caste survey has not been implemented by any of the Congress-ruled states. Despite Bihar successfully carrying it out, it has not been fully adopted by the poll-bound states. Obviously, there are doubts on its national acceptability. The Congress has received imaginative suggestions from the Sachar Committee on building a diversity index and creating an Equal Opportunity Commission, but the party allowed it to be cold-storaged.
With the approval of Narendra Modi as the foremost national leader and the BJP ensconced comfortably in the north with a massive mandate, there is a steep uphill road ahead for not only the Congress, but also for the INDIA alliance it was hoping to lead. With the state parties having been pushed to the margins since 2014 – until then, they had claimed one-third of Lok Sabha seats – all the partners need to be humble and accommodative, a tough proposition.
If Rahul has any desire to strengthen the alliance, he must be accommodative and make space. A programmatic agenda would have to predominate over criticisms of Modi. Institution-building must be forefronted with inclusive politics. Though the Congress is on the wrong side of history for 2024, party building village by village, block by block, district by district, state by state, along with a massive political recruitment of the youth, could see a revival in the long run.
Ajay K. Mehra was Atal Bihari Vajpayee Senior Fellow, Nehru Memorial Museum and Library, New Delhi, 2019-21.
This piece was first published on The India Cable – a premium newsletter from The Wire & Galileo Ideas – and has been updated and republished here. To subscribe to The India Cable, click here.