It is one great lesson they seem to have forgotten, the ability of the Gandhi name to draw voters and their connect with the people of India. After the NDA’s term lead by Atal Behari Vajpayee, the Congress held power for a decade. From the turn of the century the world has now moved on to end of the second decade of the 21st Century. The generation which grew up without cell phones or were using the early models of Nokia phones of the late 90s, is now well into middle age. Today’s young generation thrives on social media which they access on sophisticated cell-phones. This has necessitated changes in governance and politics. Ease of outreach available to government departments as well as politicians is the single most important change in the new reality, which perhaps many in the congress failed to take advantage of.
To his credit Rahul Gandhi tried to bridge the gap of this
changing reality for his party. After the
2014 defeat, he fought hard and from the front to register wins in many states,
even ousting the BJP from three big states of Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh and
Chhattisgarh. Infact the BJP which coined
the slogan ‘Congress mukt bharat’ soon realised that it is not going to happen.
So, what really is going on now? Leaders, who formed the
backbone of the party during the last two decades wrote a letter to the
Congress president requesting her to initiate certain changes, which are well
known. Meanwhile, why is Rahul Gandhi refusing to return as party president.
Are they (the old guard) the reason for his hesitation? Is he waiting for a sign
from them that they would own up to previous losses or at least do so in the
future? Congress General Secretary Priyanka Gandhi was perhaps more vocal about
it when she said that Rahul was left fighting alone while campaigning for the
2019 elections. If that is so, then why is the old guard not ready to accept this and make amends by supporting him now as
he is taking on the BJP government on almost all fronts.
Also, a big change is sweeping across the rank and file of congress party workers. First, they seemed to have swelled considerably in recent times. Secondly, they have begun to come out on the streets - whether it was to help the returning migrants as seen during the start of the pandemic, or to protest the China border issue, unemployment, economic downturn or the farm bills. And
they are flooding social media with their action videos. In 2014, Rahul when
acknowledging that the BJP had made good use of social media for winning the
Lok Sabha elections, had declared that the Congress will also learn to do it
and become better than them.
It is clear that these young
workers owe allegiance to Rahul and Priyanka and not to the old guard. The sooner the G-23, as they are
being referred to by the media, wake up to this reality, the faster will be the
return of Rahul Gandhi as Congress president. Of course, the party should find a
balance to work together with the stalwarts who can be the guiding force both inside and outside parliament..
Otherwise, the letter they wrote will remain a distress message in a
bottle for their political survival.
