Opinion | Haryana To Bengal, Congress Is Fighting Hard - But Mostly With Itself

Even as AICC's 88th president Mallikarjun Kharge is set to enter three years in office next month, the grand old party continues to stare at an uncertain future, inaction and masterly inactivity dogged by internal bickering in several states, from Haryana, Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan to Assam, Kerala and Bengal, where assembly polls are scheduled early next year.

For over six months now, the Congress top leadership, including Kharge and Gandhis, have failed to remove some ageing Congress Working Committee (CWC) members to accommodate Rajani Patil (in charge of Himachal Pradesh and Chandigarh), B.K. Hariprasad (Haryana), Harish Chaudhary (Madhya Pradesh), Girish Chodankar (Tamil Nadu and Puducherry), Ajay Kumar Lallu (Odisha), K. Raju (Jharkhand), Meenakshi Natarajan (Telangana), Saptagiri Sankar Ulaka (Manipur, Tripura, Sikkim and Nagaland) and Krishna Allavaru (Bihar).

Those Who Won't Budge

However, claiming proximity to Sonia Gandhi, AK Antony, Ambika Soni, Meera Kumar, and a few others survived. The attempts to shift out Gaurav Gogai, Randeep Surjewala, and Charanjit Singh Channi have not fructified due to internal dynamics. Gaurav Gogai is tipped to be the Congress face in the poll-bound state of Assam. Surjewala and Channi are reportedly keen to head the Congress units in Haryana and Punjab.

As per the Congress party constitution, AICC general secretaries are required to be members of the CWC. Thus, these office-bearers were given a nomenclature of 'in charge' instead of full-time AICC general secretaries. Once they are inducted into the CWC, they can function as party general secretaries.

The removal of AK Antony and Ambika Soni is apparently driven by the 'age factor'. While Antony, 84, has been away and aloof from politics since he moved out of Delhi in 2022, Soni, 82, has been active. Antony's son, Anil, has joined the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), causing his father acute embarrassment. Like Antony, Soni draws her strength from being a Sonia Gandhi lackey. During Sonia's years (1998-2022), Soni's influence was so overarching that Congress leaders used to grudgingly describe her as 'Sonia' minus the 'a'. Soni had many camp followers, such as Kamal Nath, Salman Khurshid, Kumari Selja and Pawan Bansal, among others.

The Shaky Ground In Bihar

Poll-bound Bihar is proving to be tricky for the Congress, where Rahul Gandhi held a rather successful 1,300-kilometre 'Vote Adhikar yatra'. A number of mahagathbandan and INDIA alliance partners, namely, Tejashwi Yadav, Dipankar Bhattacharya, MK Stalin, Akhilesh Yadav and others, attended it. Throughout the yatra, Rahul impressed even his political opponents with a sizable crowd and good oratory skills.

Also Read | Lalu Yadav's Daughter Unfollows Him, Brother Tejashwi On Social Media Ahead Of Polls

However, the internal impact assessment by the Congress has shown that the yatra may not significantly translate into votes. Congress insiders admit that the campaign has been high on optics but thin on substance because the voting rights issue is a bit paradoxical. Those who have found their names in the electoral rolls have reasons to be satisfied, while persons missing from the voters' list have little avenue to be consequential in the ensuing polls, simply because they would have no voting rights. The Congress's organisational network is too fragile and inadequate to make any ground-level mobilisation possible. 

In more pragmatic terms, the Congress's reluctance to name Tejashwi Yadav as a chief ministerial candidate is adding to the confusion. The Rashtriya Janata Dal leader and Laloo Yadav's son takes for granted that he'd be the chief ministerial face. Sources close to Tejashwi say the former deputy chief minister expected Rahul to name him as the mahagathbandhan's official CM face during the Vote Adhikar Yatra.

The Deal With Tejashwi

While Congress's Rajya Sabha MP Akhilesh Prasad Singh has been describing Tejashwi as the 'most prominent face' of the alliance, a section of party strategists wishes to maintain some ambiguity about the chief ministerial name. In their assessment, in caste-ridden Bihar, a decision to project Tejashwi as a pre-poll chief ministerial candidate may boomerang. However, for RJD and Laloo Prasad Yadav's family, the issue is non-negotiable - they believe that mahagathbandan partners, particularly the Congress and Gandhis, must name Tejashwi as a logical claimant for the coveted post.

The Congress's disinclination to do that has a lot to do with its own predicament over naming chief ministerial candidates in poll-bound states of Assam and  Kerala. In Assam, Gaurav Gogai is a front-ranking leader, while in Kerala, the party has a choice among Shashi Tharoor, Ramesh Chennithala, VD Satheeshan, Sunny Joseph and K Murleedharan.

Infighting Is A Constant

According to Vote Vibe agency, the nonconformist Shashi Tharoor is the most popular choice as Pinarayi Vijayan's successor. Tharoor's popularity ratings are 28.4%, and his rivals within his party, who are also vying for the coveted post, are trailing badly. For instance, the AICC general secretary in charge of organisation, KC Venugopal, is pegged at a poor 4.2%, while others, namely, V D Satheeshan and Sunny Joseph, have popularity ratings of 15% and 2%, respectively. Other contenders such as Ramesh Chennithala and K Murleedharan have a support of 8.2% and 6%, respectively.

Also Read | Analysis: Will Rahul Gandhi's Yatra Impact Bihar Election?

Internal bickering has also blighted Rajasthan, where the party lost power in 2023. In the recently concluded Delhi University Student Union polls, the youth wing, the National Students' Union of India (NSUI), performed badly. AICC general secretary Sachin Pilot had campaigned extensively for these elections, while the NSUI in-charge at the AICC secretariat, Kanhaiya Kumar, had stayed away. But Sachin's bete noires, as if taking a cue from former chief minister Ashok Gehlot, are busy blaming Sachin instead of Kanahiya Kumar. In Madhya Pradesh, state party chief Jitu Patwari and CLP leader Umang Singhar continue to be upstaged by veteran Kamal Nath and Digvijaya Singh, who get into fights frequently and unite only for the sake of social media platforms.

(Rasheed Kidwai is an author, columnist and a conversation curator)

Disclaimer: These are the personal opinions of the author