As expected, Rahul despite being the face was not blamed by the party for the drubbings while Sonia Gandhi returned back as president of the party — only to ensure that the Nehru-Gandhi family’s legacy shouldn’t be challenged inside the party. Despite facing such debacle for the second consecutive time, the party leadership immediately continued with the same repeated allegations that “India under PM Modi is marching towards Facism.” Since then, many waters have flown through the rivers of Yamuna, but the working system of 24 Akbar Road remained the same. Across the country, the message has been clear: the Nehru-Gandhi brand that the grand old party relies on now no longer appeals to a large section of India — forget BJP voters, even a chunk of anti-BJP voters aren’t much interested with this brand.

Obviously, the party never paid heed to these sentiments — it is not that Congress high command has now started to pay heed to these ground realities. The current Rajasthan crisis that has struck the party also stems from the same problem. Ever since the formation of the government in Rajasthan in 2018, there have been many reports in the media about the power struggle between chief minister Ashok Gehlot and young turk Sachin Pilot, who was made the deputy chief minister of the state — who is now removed from the post and also from the post of the party’s state president too. The media reports of power tussle between the two leaders weren’t wrong — as confirmed by Ashok Gehlot in a recent interview to a national news channel, where he said that there had been no communication between him and Pilot for the last 18 months. Not only this, Gehlot alleged that Pilot has been trying to topple the party government since its formation.

Although Pilot has repeatedly declined to be in touch with the BJP secretly, as alleged by the Congress, the truth is that this doesn’t seem to be true. It is obvious that in politics when one party’s house is not in order, the rival party will try to score points. Also, it is clear from Gehlot’s statement that his government ignored Pilot — in such a way that the posts he held just got reduced into ceremonious posts. So, it can’t be denied that Sachin Pilot’s camp and BJP ever had any secret communication — as it is obvious in politics, if a leader like Pilot is ignored by his own Congress party, he will try to communicate with the rival BJP, either directly or indirectly. Nothing wrong in it. But, the Congress party by blaming BJP is just ignoring the deep crisis inside the party that has been brewing since last year’s drubbings. The party should instead search answers: Why do many leaders across the country feel suffocated within the party?

The Congress high command can’t deny the fact that it has been unaware of the existing power tussle of Rajasthan for the last 18 months. Had the party high command tried to solve the issues, Pilot wouldn't have rebelled against the party. So, it will be politically incorrect to blame it only as a power struggle between Gehlot and Pilot. More than this, the present crisis reflects how Sonia Gandhi led Congress is unable to work out the issues one after the other — whether it is Karnataka, Madhya Pradesh and now Rajasthan. Jyotiraditya Scindia’s exit should have alarmed the leadership. Importantly, both Jyotiraditya & Sachin Pilot were once projected as future of the Congress & were known as close to Rahul Gandhi. So, when young turks closer to Gandhi family are distancing themselves from the family and eventually from the party, it also lucidly points to the declining popularity of the Gandhi family even among many leaders of the party. As the family still tightly controls the party, leaders unsatisfied with its functioning prioritising family’s interest are either sidelined or are forced to leave the party.

Actually, it is not only a battle between old and new guards of the party. The problem is more deep — as it has to do with ideology. That’s the reason, defections are not new for the Congress — particularly when it is out of power in the centre. Take the case of West Bengal. In 2016 state assembly polls, Congress won 44 seats more than its senior ally coalition partner CPM led Left Front, which managed to grab only 32 seats — as the grand old party failed to transfer votes to the candidates of Left Front. But, presently, the grand old party’s tally is just reduced to just 25 from 44 while Left has 26 MLAs, down from 32. It means that in comparison to the Left Front MLAs, more Congress MLAs, three times more than the Left Front, defected towards ruling Trinamool Congress and a few towards new strong opposition BJP. It is not that Mamata Banerjee led TMC didn’t lure the opposition CPM or other Left MLAs; it did but it hasn’t yet managed to get the way it got success in attracting the Congress MLAs.

Although, the fact is that the condition of CPM and the Left is worse nationally than Congress. Actually, Left MLAs should have deserted more than the Congress. But, it happened otherwise. It is because CPM led Left Front MLAs are ideological unlike the Congress MLAs; that’s the reason neither Mamata’s TMC nor BJP has got any big success in luring them.

The case of West Bengal shows that Congress generally falters when it is out of power— as the party isn’t an ideological one like BJP, CPM or CPI. So, in absence of power, there is no ideology to act as a glue for the Congress leaders. And, the glue that held the party together for decades, the Nehru-Gandhi family brand has been now losing the momentum of support across the country for quite a long time — leading to exaggeration of the already existing internal crisis that the Congress party has been facing since its worst debacle in 2014. That’s why, it is politically futile to blame BJP — when the own house of Congress is completely in a mess. (IPA Service)