The despondency is understandable, the electoral rout is indeed an unmitigated disaster for the Grand Old Party in the 134th year of its storied political journey. Rahul Gandhi’s decision to resign as Congress president has only further rocked the boat that is navigating turbulent waters infested with sharks.
The brazen anaconda-like swallowing of the Congress-Janata Dal (Secular) Karnataka government by the unconscionable, opportunistic Bharatiya Janata Party is a perfect example of how the latter intends to fulfill its cherished aspiration of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s highfalutin call of Congress-mukt Bharat (India without Congress).
In the BJP playbook, the ends justify the means, whether it is cash offers, political intimidation, institutional threats of criminal proceedings or a promise of ministerial positions that would augment self-aggrandizement. In its crude bottomline approach of power-at-any-cost, the BJP is creating new touchstones of political malfeasance.
However, given the massive mandate of 303 seats they received (despite their terrible performance), their hubris is human.
I think the BJP actually believes that the ‘MLA stock exchange’ that they created in Bengaluru where elected legislators were traded as purchasable commodities has public backing. They cared a damn. For them ‘Operation Kamal’, as the sleazy buyout of MLAs was christened, was a way of saying QED; we can do as we please.
But this piece is not about the BJP. It is about the Congress party and what it can and must do to reboot itself and reclaim the fast dissipating, disintegrating ideals that our Constitution’s founders once envisaged.
India is close to a dangerous precipice and this is not just vacuous fear-mongering.
If you don’t believe me go and ask the family of Tabrez Ansari, callously slaughtered by a bloodthirsty mob. And he is not the only one. India’s hate-mongers are being mainstreamed; not long ago they were also being garlanded by Harvard-educated, McKinsey-experienced lawmakers of the BJP.
The Congress party must stem the rot: after all, at stake is the future of a complex, democratic society that houses 16% of the world’s inhabitants. But to do that first it will have to reinvent itself.
The cliché goes that extraordinary times demand extraordinary solutions: frankly, it appears customized for a Congress renewal in its worst days. However, instead of cosmetic tinkering, one needs to do a major surgery, almost akin to a complete personality makeover.
The elephant in the room is the moribund AICC (All India Congress Committee) which appears largely comatose on account of its disorganisation. A new architecture is needed.
Here are five suggestions that will help bring about a structural change; strategy, tactics, game-plans, Plan B, alliances, et cetera will be a natural by-product or collateral of this exercise:
- Appoint 5 regional vice-presidents
The All India Congress Committee (AICC) structure right now suffers from bureaucratic cholesterol; it needs to be junked. We live in the age of Artificial Intelligence, drones, 1,000 million mobile phones, Big Data and facial recognition technology — adhering to an old, non-performing, labyrinth-like organisational body is counterproductive.
Currently, the Congress president is over-stretched with practically every key decision being concentrated in that position. It is practically impossible to have the daily bandwidth to absorb the diverse, complex and people issues that regularly crop up in a loose, fragmented volunteer-driven political party with several competing factions.
Sanjay Jha is National Spokesperson, Indian National Congress party
First published on https://in.news.yahoo.com/, republished with authors persmisssion