Gujarat is eyeing elections this year, as we are very well aware, and that too, in all probabilities, by December. The poll-bound state is not only the home turf of PM Narendra Modi and HM Amit Shah but also deemed as the bastion of the BJP and, sans mincing words, an ardent votary of the Hindutva ideology in all practical senses. With the elections quickly nearing, when both the Bhartiya Janata Party (BJP) and the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) have girded their loins, rolling out the big guns, the sixty-four-dollar question one astoundingly ponders upon is, “Where is Congress”?
Gujarat, after the Bhartiya Janata Party’s 27-year-long rule, will experience a contrasting political battle, beyond the usual fight between the Bhartiya Janata Party and the Congress Party. Kejriwal is campaigning coast to coast, promising freebies in hopes of riding the supposed ‘anti-incumbent’ wave, as he claims. “An ‘Intelligence Bureau report’ suggests that the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) is set to form the government in Gujarat if elections are held today,” Kejriwal declared while addressing a press conference in Rajkot. However, like the evidence proving the alleged “Rafale Scam”, the Congress Party is nowhere to be found.
Hilariously, the purportedly missing Congress Party will be the first in line to accuse others of being the “B team” of the Bhartiya Janata Party. Last year, senior Congress leader Adhir Ranjan Chaudhary lambasted West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee, calling her the Trojan horse of the Bhartiya Janata Party. He remarked, “Mamata Banerjee has always tried to bite the hand that fed her. She should be kept out of the efforts to form opposition unity. She is the Trojan Horse of the BJP, who can never be trusted in the fight against the BJP”. Most recently, while Goa, the small coastal state, was facing political turmoil over overseeing Goa’s assembly elections, the Congress, with waning popularity in the state, blatantly accused the Aam Aadmi Party of having an undeclared alliance with the Bhartiya Janata Party.
Currently, Congress de-facto supremo Rahul Gandhi, along with the Congress top brass, is busy with the much vaunted “Bharat-Jodo Yatra”, the “padayatra” of more than 3,500 km across India, from Kanyakumari to Kashmir. The Congress Party is attempting to rejuvenate the Gandhi surname, but most importantly, to relaunch the haughty Rahul Gandhi as India’s Prime Minister in waiting. The farsighted gamble is possibly, and hopefully, the preparation for the 2024 general elections. This isn’t the first time that the crowned royals of the Congress Party have misplaced interests. Rahul Gandhi’s frequent trips to Thailand and Italy need no elucidation. In the most shameful act, just after the 26/11 carnage in Mumbai, the part-time politician was partying in a lavish farmhouse at Radhey Mohan Chowk on the outskirts of Delhi, at the “sangeet” for the wedding of Samir Sharma, his childhood friend. If one were to sum up the philosophy of Congress politics in a line, “Ashamed of nothing, offended by everything.” Most recently, during the Maharashtra political bedlam that resulted in the jettison of the Congress supported government, Priyanka Gandhi Vadra reached Mumbai, but only as a pitstop to visit her daughter who completed an instructor level diving course in the Maldives.
That said, the yatra has hardly gained any traction apart from the Congress party members, apart from the time when the crowned prince decided to sport a $500 Burberry T-shirt during his “padayatra” meant to unite the people of the country. Taking a jibe at the same, former party leader Ghulam Nabi Azad said that the yatra should be renamed “Congress Jodo Yatra” (Unite Congress Rally). Amid the Bharat Jodo Yatra, there’s been much hullabaloo over the Congress Party contesting elections for the next Congress President. Alas, better late than never! Ironically, Jawaharlal Nehru handed over the party’s presidency to several others while leading the country as Prime Minister. This tradition of separating the post of party leader from that of Prime Minister was continued by the “authoritarian” Indira Gandhi. However, after the appointment of Sonia Gandhi in 1998, she held an iron grip on the post for almost two consecutive decades, before finally picking the malleable Manmohan Singh as Prime Minister. Interestingly, even Sonia’s appointment would not qualify as an election per se.
The facetious, however, long-due elections are being conducted following the steadfast decline of the offer by the silver spoon politician, Rahul Gandhi. In 2014, the Congress party and its allies governed 13 states, with 9 states being ruled by a Congress-led government. Cut to 2022, Congress has governments in just two states- Chhattisgarh and Rajasthan, raising severe questions about its leadership. Restricting the party’s leadership to the Nehru-Gandhi dynasty and a disappointing culture of factionalism, the party has lost many young and promising leaders, like Assam’s Chief Minister, Himanta Biswa, and Civil Aviation Minister, Jyotiraditya Scindia. In fact, within just one year, several prominent leaders, including former Gujarat Congress working president Hardik Patel, former Gujarat Congress youth president Vishwanath Singh Vaghela, and former Gujarat Youth Congress general secretary Vinay Singh Tomar, have resigned, creating huge unrest within the Gujarat Congress wing. That said, the “Bharat Jodo Yatra” carefully carves out Gujarat and Himachal Pradesh, two poll-bound states, almost indicating a sweet surrender. At the present rate of its shrinking political map, India’s Grand Old Party will not be able to survive much longer.
“The Grand Old Party”, which is largely disconnected and disengaged from ground reality, will have to acknowledge their dwindling presence and accept that opposition leaders are no longer drooling for the grand party’s support to fulfil their political ambitions. The Congress party, facing a survival crisis, needs to focus and recalibrate on their misplaced interests and nosediving performance in each election. As the party seems to enter the last legs of its political journey, the success of the “Bharat-Jodo Yatra” and farcical elections seem to be the party’s last desperate gimmick to attain political ends.
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