What Rahul Can Do Now For The Congress?

Rahul Gandhi, the royalty of Indian politics, finally came to the conclusion after the defeat of 2019 Lok Sabha Elections that the country has moved beyond the Nehru-Gandhi family, and now it is time for the Congress party to do the same. The announcement of Congress spokespersons not coming for TV debates is a clear indication of the fact that Congress is planning to go through serious and dramatic changes. But despite, Congress party's wishes to change itself, it is heavily dependent on the Gandhi family. After the death of Rajiv Gandhi, the party did try to look beyond the family, but failed to do so. Many state leaders began to make their own political parties. In Jammu and Kashmir, Mufti created his own party, People’s Democratic Party (PDP) and Mamta Banerjee dissent led to creation of Trinamool Congress (TMC) in Bengal. So, what can Congress really do to sustain itself?

Bhartiya Janata Party (BJP) for all it’s wrong-doings in the last five years, also has in-fighting within it’s party, but it's in-fighting is always solved within and does not lead to distortion of the BJP. Why does that happen? Does BJP solve those issues? They don’t. BJP’s sister organisation, Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) does that for the them. The party internal issues are solved by the RSS and there infighting does not lead to it's collapse due to it's heavy dependency on it's sister organisation. Therefore, the question arises what can Congress party learn from this?

I am sure Congress did not plan to make itself dependent on the Gandhi family. Over the course of last 70 years, it just happened to become dependent on them. Similarly, BJP is dependent on RSS. The difference between the two national parties – one depends on a family, other national party depends on a religious organisation. While in the BJP, RSS leads from the behind, on the other hand, in the Congress party, Gandhi’s lead from the front.

If you consider our countries principles of equality, justice and secularism – Gandhi’s and RSS do not fall into them. The domination of Gandhi’s represent inequality in opportunities and dynasty politics, while RSS represents the idea of India becoming a Hindu nation. What Congress needs to do is chalk out a system where the Gandhi’s keep them united and stop them from infighting but remain in-charge from behind the scenes while from the front someone else is leading them as party president, leader of the opposition and when they are in government, leader of the house.

With less than one month left for the Parliament to assemble for the budget, Congress has very less time to fix itself up and start being the opposition it should be in the Parliament. Bhartiya Janata Party already has already began its preparation for Uttar Pradesh Elections which are to be held in 2022, and Congress is lagging behind in it's election preparations as well. Therefore, India's main opposition has to really gear itself up to fight back the ruling party with a new leader in-charge but that leader must lead the party from the front only.