Following the resignation of Deputy Chief Minister of Rajasthan, Sachin Pilot from the ranks of the Congress Party, there has been more insight towards the overarching structure of the Congress Party and the flaws stemming from the so-called “Old Guard” in the party. There seems to be a divide in the party between this old guard, including the leaders close to Sonia Gandhi, and the new guard, including the leaders close to Rahul Gandhi. There is a perceived bias towards this old camp as we saw with the appointment of Ashok Gehlot and Kamal Nath as Chief Ministers of Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh, pipping Sachin Pilot and Jyotiraditya Scindia to the posts respectively.
This seemed an almost purposeful snub for Sachin Pilot and his team considering the groundwork they put in to win the Rajasthan elections and even had to fight it out in portfolio allocation and deciding the party members to stand for each constituency. Even outside these two states, multiple senior Congress leaders have taken voice against the Sonia Gandhi network of leaders, surprisingly the most vocal of which was former INC spokesperson Sanjay Jha.
He wrote a couple of scathing op-eds in newspapers against the structure of the Congress party, asking for internal democracy within the party. While these seem to be given for such a large national party, Jha was one of the first amongst the senior leadership to openly criticize the party structure. In return for his reasonable requests, he was suspended and further sacked for his dissent by what he calls the Rip Van Winkle leadership. He claims that supporting Sachin Pilot made him a BJP accessory in the eyes of the Grand Old Party (his words, not mine), and this reluctance to change, accept constructive criticism and continued bias against ambitious, young leaders is what is leading to the decline of the party at the national stage.
This divide between the young leaders of the party and the experienced ones is potentially fatal to the ambition of the party both at state and national levels. The youth of our country is growing increasingly vocal on political issues in the country and while voter turn-out is not yet reached its peak for this age group, it is growing. This is the same demographic that supports and looks up to leaders like Pilot and Scindia for their principles, ideology and intellect on political issues and seeing this nepotistic leadership continue in the party is acting against securing the confidence of the youth in the party. The Manmohan Singh tenure was riddled with controversy with corruption and puppetry at the helm and without changes to the opportunities given to young, emerging leaders in the party, it comes as little surprise that there are multiple defections and decreasing vote shares across the nation.
This change need not come from a switch in the Gandhi family leadership we see currently but even providing the right incentives and rewards to those loyal to the party, not the family, could help their case. Secondly, this almost authoritative reign the family has on dissent and constructive criticism needs to be abolished to allow fresh ideas, leaders and structures to be deliberated upon and be at least some form of a democratic party unlike the totalitarian one it is today. No, the hypocrisy is not lost on us; the party criticizing the central government for their actions against liberal ideologies and silencing dissent is the same one perpetuating these throughout the party structure itself.
It seems almost laughable that the power concentration which has lasted for decades will change overnight but they might not have much choice. If the statistics in elections over the past few years are any indication, the BJP is capturing the youth vote far better than the Congress and unless there is some change, the BJP will be the party they turn to as they optically seem to stand for what the Congress doesn’t – anti-nepotism and the youth. If they cannot retain stellar politicians like Pilot and Scindia and continue to drown the criticizing voices of Jha and others, it indicates the sorry state of affairs in the leadership of the party and an unreasonable stubbornness in the structure of the same. Pilot and Scindia will just be the start if change doesn’t come, and fast.
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