The election of the Congress president after decades may not mark a change in the way the party is run, but it does provide the party the opportunity to change its optics in a limited manner. However, this too shall depend on the extent to which Congress is willing to play the game.
The starting isn't too great. What should have been shown by the Congress as an open contest between an experienced Dalit leader, Mallikarjuna Kharge, and a suave, cosmopolitan face, Shashi Tharoor, is being seen as a cakewalk for Kharge, a family loyalist, who is coming across as the 'official' candidate. Unless the Congress is careful, the message of a second remote control, a term widely used by critics of Dr. Manmohan Singh, may soon become the dominant narrative. However, Congress can make symbolic gains if it plays its cards well.
Facing the charge that it is a dynastic party, the Congress is finally open to a party chief from outside the Nehru-Gandhi family, even if the person, in this case, Kharge, may just take cues from Sonia Gandhi or Rahul Gandhi.
Yet, with Shashi Tharoor deciding to make it a contest despite Kharge being the unstated candidate of the Nehru-Gandhi family, the Congress can at least claim that it did have an election.
Significantly, while the BJP spawns new leadership from outside a single family, there have never been two candidates for a BJP presidential election since its foundation in 1980. A phone call from Yashwant Sinha to party election in-charge Thawar Chand Gehlot had set alarm bells ringing in 2013.
Insiders in Congress, however, say that Kharge is a 'safe' person for the post, which will turn out to be largely ceremonial, with the family calling the shots when it comes to deciding the direction the party will take.
Kharge is certainly not their first choice. The first and ideal choice for the top post was Ashok Gehlot — a chief minister, an OBC, a Hindi speaker, and also an amiable man. However, MLAs loyal to Gehlot rebelled to prevent Sachin Pilot from replacing him as Rajasthan chief minister, and Gehlot was asked to withdraw from the race. Kharge was the best choice of the family for the post, once Gehlot was out of the race.
However, Kharge does not tick as many boxes. For, even as the firepower of the BJP is coming from the Hindi belt, Kharge is from Karnataka, the only south Indian state where the BJP is in power. He is also a Dalit but is known to project himself more as a Congressman than as a Dalit leader. The idea of symbolically associating with the south does not seem the main idea here, as the Congress is in the fray only in Kerala and Karnataka in south India and Kharge is himself an afterthought after the Rajasthan rebellion.
Be that as it may, Congress should ideally project this election result as the party's social justice commitment to have a Dalit president. This can be an answer to the government's elevation of Droupadi Murmu, who is the first Adivasi woman to become President of India. However, insiders say that Congress' struggle is to change its own style of doing things.
"The Congress is not in tune with hard-selling identity politics, something the BJP and some regional parties do. While the BJP projected Murmu's becoming the President in a major way, the Congress generally keeps symbolism understated," a Congress leader told me.
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"The Congress is okay with soft Hindutva, soft Dalit presence, etc., but not with hard identity display. The projection of Channi as a Dalit was the only exception, but did not really work out."
Kharge’s elevation does provide the Congress with an opportunity to enter the identity projection game that is the order of the day, but it remains to be seen whether the party will want to do so.
Significantly, the term social justice was deployed by Congress in its Udaipur Chintan Shivir. However, a committee of five people that had been constituted to draft the party’s line on social justice for the Udaipur meet did not have a single OBC on it, say party insiders.
In other words, if Congress has to really cut losses, it may have to play the BJP’s game, and not stick to its traditional style. In the traditional mode, Kharge can just keep the party going and offer Rahul Gandhi a free hand to meet people on the ground in the run-up to the Lok Sabha polls. However, if it does project Kharge as a Dalit leader, it can try to enter the game of symbolic representation that the BJP under Narendra Modi has perfected.
Tharoor's decision not to withdraw his candidature is actually a good one, as Congress has to walk the extra mile to show voters that it is trying to be internally democratic. Visible devotion to the first family is something common voters do not like about the party.
But, old habits die hard, and the party has been unable to win the war of optics in the presidential election. Tharoor has alleged that party delegates who are thronging to meet Kharge when he campaigns are giving Tharoor the cold shoulder. While just 10 of the 272 delegates of the DPCC who are part of the electoral college turned up to meet Tharoor, as many as about 250 turned up to meet Kharge.
It is clear that the 'official’ candidate is Kharge, and that the shadow of the Nehru-Gandhi family is looming large over the election. However, even this formality of a contest is better than the uncontested reverence offered to the family by party members in previous years.
With the ongoing Bharat Jodo Yatra and the presidential election, which should have happened in 2019 itself, there are signs that Congress is trying to do something. However, this late effort may not be able to halt the BJP’s juggernaut. It may not even slow it down, but Congress has to keep experimenting in order to be seen as a party in the fray.
Vikas Pathak is a columnist and media educator. The views expressed are personal
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