How can the somnolent Congress be revved up?
Now that the Congress celebration in India has overwhelmingly elected Mallikajun Kharge, the primary “non-Gandhi” as its President, the query as as to if the 80-year outdated celebration veteran and seasoned warhorse will be capable to awaken the 137-year outdated sleeping large to be a risk to the dominance of the BJP led by the charismatic Narendra Modi within the 2024 parliamentary elections.
Kharge has a heavy burden on his shoulders as Congress is beset by ideological confusion, organizational disarray, lack of a charismatic chief, and absence of the killer intuition, in sharp distinction to the BJP.
The BJP’s gung-ho mindset stems from the truth that, with its allies, it governs 17 out of 28 States, overlaying 44% of India’s territory and 49.6% of its inhabitants. After the rise of Narendra Modi within the BJP in 2014, the Congress has been dropping States, typically even after profitable an election due to its lack of ability to maintain its flock collectively within the face of BJP’s machinations backed by sheer chutzpah and unabashed use of State energy. The absence of electoral successes has led to demoralization. Recently, 23 high leaders stop the Congress.
During the celebration election marketing campaign, Kharge was portrayed by his detractors because the candidate of the “Gandhis” – and subsequently an emblem of a rotten and withering system. Tharoor, however, was portrayed as a dashing gladiator, a insurgent who needed to scrub the celebration stables and make it related for the younger “aspirational classes” Modi is supposedly catering to. The media was additionally dazzled by Tharoor’s spectacular character, his felicity with the English language, his scholarship and his service on the highest ranges within the United Nations.
But nonetheless, celebration voters overwhelmingly most well-liked Kharge to Tharoor. Most attribute this to his being the “Gandhis’ candidate” as blind help to the Gandhis is the norm within the Congress. But truly, Kharge received as a result of he solutions to the rising political wants.
Kharge is a match to Modi in some necessary methods. Like Modi,he doesn’t belong to the Westernized social elite. As a Dalit-Buddhist he’s a part of the hoi polloi, a quintessential image of the lots, because it had been. As a homespun socio-cultural kind, he may have better enchantment to the lots than Tharoor and a potent problem to Modi by that token. Kharge would additionally be capable to relate to the celebration rank and file extra simply than the Westernized, elitist Tharoor.
Additionally, not like Tharoor and like Modi, Kharge is a full-time politician with an extended profession in politics. He can be an election knowledgeable having received all however one of many 13 elections he had stood for since he entered politics in 1969. Again, not like Tharoor and like Modi, Kharge has expertise of working on the native, State and nationwide ranges.
Overcoming Hindutva Challenge
But Kharge (like all Congress leaders) has one main disqualification: He can’t tout “Hindutva” or “Hindu nationalism” a significant vote catcher for the BJP in lots of elements of India. According to a 2019 PEW survey, 64% of Hindus (the bulk group) stated that being a Hindu is essential to be actually Indian. This feeling was as excessive as 83% in Central India, 69% within the North, and 42% within the South. Congress, however, is wedded to secularism or non-communal politics, although its dedication to those values has waned as a result of repeated election defeats. The result’s that the Congress of as we speak lacks a clear-cut ideology.
Therefore, one among Kharge’s first duties could be to offer ideological readability to celebration members first after which to the voters. To get spherical Hindutva, the celebration must stress secularism, communal concord and social justice and distinction it with the BJP’s communal and divisive politics and its long run in poor health results. Like Modi, and in contrast to Rahul and Sonia Gandhi, Kharge is an instance of social mobility. He has risen from the bottom-most rung within the Indian socio-political ladder to the very best rung in nationwide politics.
Defeatism arising from an absence of electoral successes is one other downside Kharge has to sort out. The dispirited celebration has not exploited its appreciable achievements throughout its stewardship of India from 1947 to 2014 with just some gaps. The celebration has didn’t tom tom the truth that it began the financial reform course of within the early Nineties, introduced in regards to the inexperienced revolution, and elevated telecom protection from 2% in 2004 to effectively over 50% in 2014. Its authorities opened financial institution branches in distant areas and developed the distinctive id scheme, “Aadhaar” to present residents an id primarily based on biometrics. The National Payments Corporation of India was set as much as create a framework for digital funds. It instituted state-funded well being insurance for the poor and paid girls to present delivery at hospitals, not at houses and began a profitable rural employment scheme for the poorest of the poor.
But, as T.Okay. Arun of the Economic Times put it, the Congress handled these achievements as “administrative” and never “political”, to be touted and exploited in elections. In distinction, BJP governments below Modi launch their schemes with fanfare, give them catchy Hindi names and attribute them solely to Modi’s management in order that his charisma is enhanced.
The Congress’ campaigns have been lackluster and unappealing to the intelligentsia, the youth and the aspirational lessons due to its lack of ability to make use of the social media in full, not like the BJP. The social media are cheaper than the mainstream media which tend to kowtow to the ruling celebration, presently the BJP.
Congress cadres stir themselves up solely at election time. To hold the cadres awake and concerned, free and honest elections must be held commonly on the the nationwide, State, district and decrease ranges in order that activists come to the fore, as senior chief P.Chidambaram has instructed. And, as celebration Communications General Secretary Jairam Ramesh stated, celebration cadres must be well-versed within the celebration’s insurance policies, converse out on the celebration’s stand on points, and rebut criticisms promptly and forcefully.
Lastly, it’s instructed that celebration members stop bowing to their bosses within the feudal custom. Though there are doubts about Mallikarjun Kharge attempting to emerge from the shadow of Sonia and Rahul Gandhi, given his fame as a staunch loyalist, it’s hoped that the dire state of the celebration will pressure Kharge and Rahul Gandhi to suppose afresh and make the celebration preventing match to face the 2024 parliamentary polls.
The latest Presidential election and Rahul Gandhi’s on-going Barat Jodo Yatra (Unite India March) from the deep South to the North of India, could possibly be indicators of a change for the higher.
