The future of the Congress Party is bright when it stops targeting the PM and focus on the ample MLAs and MPs that it can target. In a hunting expedition, the animal would fall prey to the hunter if it behaves and follows the trails that the hunter sets to nab it down. The Congress party is behaving like ‘the animal’ in this case. The PM has been in public for more than 2/3rds of his life span and is very sound in predicting human behaviour. The Congress party contradicts him in either ‘wrong’ subjects or falls into his trap. This has happened numerous times.
The future of the Congress Party lies in India’s Development. (And the future of India’s Development is also positively correlated with the Congress party’s survival). Congress was sleeping under the morning sun while BJP made its name synonymous with ‘Good Governance’ and ‘Development’. However, now, it’s high time to wake up and communicate! India is the fastest growing economy in the world today! Moreover, this is not merely because of the NDA’99 or the BJP’14 government, this surely because of economic reforms in 1991-1992. There are many constructive steps like this that they could put up in front of people in a better way.
In the same way, they could counter BJP’s development agenda by putting up a Better Development Agenda instead of mocking the parliament sessions.
If this happens, people will start having confidence in the Congress party, even when BJP remains in power in the Centre and in the majority of the states. Despite the challenges, Indira Gandhi, who was mockingly referred to as “Goongi Gudiya,” emerged as a strong and decisive leader, under whose leadership India won a decisive war against Pakistan in 1971. The war resulted in Congress reclaiming its place as the most dominant player in the Indian political system, so much so that its power became increasingly unchecked. In a democracy, a government with unchecked power is quite problematic.
In 2004, Congress made a comeback again in quite an astonishing fashion by defeating the incumbent BJP in power. Congress would spend the next decade fully in control of India’s central government. This decade, especially the second half, was marred by corruption. Telecom, railways, coal, land, sports, and various other ministries saw their names tarred under charges of corruption. Popular resentment against the regime grew prevalent among the public due to the increasing corruption within the government and the party’s inability to take any affirmative action against it.
Then prime minister Manmohan Singh was largely seen as a weak leader, who couldn’t take tough action against corrupt members within his party and government. As a result, the party lost pathetically in the 2014 general elections, where it won only 44 seats in the Lok Sabha out of the 543 up for grabs — an all-time low.
Since then, the party still hasn’t settled into a new role. It has been losing election after election across many states in India. The most notable loss came in Uttar Pradesh, the most populated state in India, where the party got just seven seats in an assembly of 403 seats.
Most political observers are of the opinion that Congress lacks a genuine mass leader, of which it used to have in dozens in its glory days. The President of the party Rahul Gandhi has been somewhat of a laughing stock due to his lack of leadership skills and his inability to win elections.
To sum up, Congress has lost its sheen and doesn’t look to be in a position to even pose a challenge to the current BJP regime in the 2019 general elections. If they manage to do so, the party would be pulling a rabbit out of a hat!
Worryingly, the demise of Congress means the demise of a balanced political system in India. Congress and the BJP, the two most dominant powers, used to balance off each other in Indian politics. With this balance lost, a newly emergent “BJP System” is replacing the earlier Congress System. At no time in the history of the party, Congress party have won an election either on the issue of development or on positive issues.
Right now, Congress does not have any charismatic leader who can convincingly bring victory to the party. Also, Congress has, over the years right from Indira Gandhi, has demolished all institutions within the party by nominating figureheads. Thereby leadership development was buried once and for all. To revive them is not possible with the present set of leadership. It took a hundred years to develop them but took only 30 years to demolish them.
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