Is The Congress Close To Settling The Leadership Issue?

The absence of a full-time Congress president has given the rival BJP an opportunity to label the opposition party as rudderless.

After deferring the exercise three times over the past two years, the Congress is once again set to discuss organizational elections on October 16, amidst hope that the party would finally settle the leadership issue.

The demand for a full-time elected party president has been raised by several leaders, including the group of seniors who wrote a letter of dissent in 2020 and later came to be known as G-23.

The leadership issue, which is linked with organizational elections, has been discussed within the party circles since 2019 but could not be resolved. The delay only gave bad press to the party rather than doing any good to it.

The leadership issue never arose till Sonia Gandhi was party chief from 1998-2017. Her son Rahul Gandhi became party president in 2017 as part of organizational elections but he owned up responsibility for the Congress’ debacle in the 2019 national elections and resigned.

When Rahul refused to take back his resignation, the party asked Sonia to become interim chief in August 2019 in the hope that a full-time party chief would take over in a year. However, the interim arrangement continues.

Over the past three years, a string of poll losses in states made the G-23 uneasy and forced them to urge Sonia to go in for a complete overhaul of the party and conduct elections for all posts, including the party chief, to take on the ruling BJP.

The schedule for internal polls was discussed in January this year but the exercise had to be postponed till June, keeping in mind assembly elections in West Bengal, Assam, Kerala, Tamil Nadu and Puducherry.

In May, the internal polls were again deferred for a few months in the wake of the second wave of the pandemic and also because of the party’s poor performance in the state elections.

The need for internal polls and a full-time elected party chief was again flagged by the G-23 after infighting in the Punjab unit could not be resolved amicably and there were reports that unrest was brewing in the Rajasthan and Chhattisgarh units as well.

The absence of a full-time Congress president has given the rival BJP an opportunity to label the opposition party as rudderless, though for most party leaders, the issue of who leads the Congress should best be left for them to decide.

Second term for Rahul

The October 16 meeting is taking place amidst a buzz that Rahul, who is the de facto Congress president as he is taking all the key decisions, may return to the top party post.

Though his critics claim Rahul is reluctant to take over again, his close aides say the leader wants his promotion to happen through an election route rather than a nomination.

An election process gives credibility to the person occupying the top party post, something which a nomination cannot.

However, just like in January, the party is faced with assembly polls in five states, including Uttar Pradesh, Punjab, Uttarakhand, Goa and Manipur, in early 2022 and it may not be practical to hold internal polls at a time when workers in these states are busy preparing for electoral contests.

Interestingly, the past few weeks have seen unanimous resolutions passed by the party’s youth wings in favour of Rahul as the next party president but a more humane appeal has come from Karnataka leaders K Siddaramaiah and DK Shiv Kumar, who have cited Sonia Gandhi’s ill health as the reason to promote Rahul.

Hopefully, the Saturday meeting will make it clear if the party wants to opt for an appointment route by passing a resolution naming Rahul as the next party chief and get it approved later through internal elections or if the party prefers to continue with Sonia as the interim chief.

Though the party leaders are best equipped to decide what is good for the organization, it would be in the interest of the Congress to settle the leadership issue once and for all.

To keep it hanging, in the hope that a more opportune time will come, may not offer the best solution.

Besides being the de facto party chief, Rahul has also been leading the party in Parliament and heading poll campaigns in the past. He has also been active in coordinating with the other like-minded parties in forging a bigger anti-BJP front ahead of the 2024 national polls.

Combo leadership

Of late, there have been discussions around a new Rahul-Priyanka style of leadership combo which was taking controversial yet bold decisions.

A combo leadership option may be good for strategy sessions but for the sake of an official charge, only one person can hold the post of party chief.

Over the past years, Rahul has been trying to bring in more younger leaders into the party fold and giving them key roles to prepare for the future.

He has also been open in welcoming Left leader Kanhaiya Kumar and Dalit activist Jignesh Mewani to counter the charge that the party was losing young leaders who saw no future for themselves in the grand old party.

Priyanka is trying hard to revive the party in UP, a big challenge in itself and generally campaigns across the country.

Non-Gandhi option

After the 2019 national elections, Rahul Gandhi had asked party leaders to choose someone outside the Gandhi family as the new president and advise them not consider any member of his family.

However, after several rounds of consultations, the veterans could not converge on a single name.

It was feared that a non-Gandhi party chief may not be effective with the family around and the arrangement would create two power centers within the organization.

Further, it was felt that it may not be possible for a non-Gandhi leader to run the party minus the Gandhis because they still have an all-India appeal, play a role in keeping the flock together and provide it an ideological mooring.

Even amongst the G-23, there is hardly anyone who can fit the bill and revive the party nationwide.