The Gujarat defeat was honourable, but Rahul's Congress needs to urgently stem the organisational rot to stand a fighting chance against the Modi-Shah election machine in 2019.
Photo: Ajit Solanki (AP)On December 16, when 
Rahul Gandhi formally took charge as president of the Congress, his mother 
Sonia Gandhi had some encouraging words to prepare him for two more potential defeats in the next 48 hours-after 17 in the past three years. Sonia reminded Rahul that when she became president of the party in March 1998, it was in power in just five states. "Gradually, we formed governments in nearly two dozen states," she said.
Rahul is starting with exactly the same number of states under the party's belt, though its Lok Sabha tally is more than a hundred less than in Sonia's time. But his challenges are far greater than his mother's. The unprecedented popularity and campaign chutzpah of Prime Minister 
Narendra Modi and the micro-management capabilities of Amit Shah have given the BJP not only a brute majority of 282 seats in the Lok Sabha but also power in 19 out of 29 states (it is a coalition partner in six of them).
The defeat in Gujarat underlines the Himalayan task facing Rahul as the Congress labours to reclaim its political space. In spite of his most spirited campaign till date, Rahul could not bring the party to power in Gujarat, though he succeeded in increasing its tally by 16 seats and restricting the BJP to double digits. But it is this creditable failure that offers Rahul the rationale and opportunity to implement a reform blueprint that will allow the party under him to mount a challenge to Modi in the 2019 Lok Sabha elections.
Organisational vacuum
The most significant difference between the Congress and the BJP today is in their party organisation. While the BJP is organisationally efficient down to the booth level in all states-even where it's not a strong player-the Congress has done precious little in the past three years to strengthen its organisational base. It conducted organisational elections in the states, but as the Gujarat election verdict shows, the party is no match for the BJP at the grassroots. "We had to hire non-Congress people to do organisational work at several places in Gujarat," admits a Congress secretary, one of the four who were sent by Rahul to assist Gujarat election in-charge Ashok Gehlot.
For the Congress, building a strong organisation in the states from the grassroots will be a long-term mission. But many in the party believe Rahul's new avatar as a spirited leader will inspire party workers to regroup and take the battle to the BJP camp. "Elections cannot be won through booth management alone," says Delhi Congress president Ajay Maken. "Why couldn't the BJP win in Delhi and Bihar? The Congress is an ideology, and India will again embrace this ideology after the momentary distraction. The BJP's campaign, based on lies, cannot hold forever."
The Gujarat election also brought to the fore the lack of strong regional leaders in the party. The Congress campaign revolved around Rahul, and the troika of Hardik Patel, Alpesh Thakor and Jignesh Mevani. Several Congress stalwarts in Gujarat-Shaktisinh Gohil, Tushar Chaudhary, Siddharth Patel and Arjun Modhwadia-lost. "Barring a few states, the Congress doesn't have inspiring regional leaders, who can draw a thousand people to a rally," reasons a party general secretary.
The state leaderships are in disarray in four of the big states that may decisively swing 2019-Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, West Bengal and Tamil Nadu. Together, these states account for 201 seats in the Lok Sabha, of which the Congress could win only eight in the 2014 elections. Its average vote share in these states in subsequent assembly elections is 7.8 per cent. Before the 2019 battle, eight state elections will test the Congress next year: Karnataka, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, Chhattisgarh, Meghalaya, Mizoram, Nagaland and Tripura. In four of them, the Congress and BJP will be locked in a direct contest. These states account for 99 seats in the Lok Sabha. Of these, the BJP had won 79 in 2014 and the Congress a paltry 11.
In Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan, the Congress has multiple claimants for chief ministership. In Chhattisgarh, the party is yet to find a leader to fill the gap left by Ajit Jogi's exit in June last year. In Congress-ruled Karnataka, Rahul has settled the leadership issue by backing incumbent chief minister 
Siddaramaiah, but he faces a tough task in the face of the BJP's impressive performance in the 2014 Lok Sabha elections. The BJP won 17 out of 28 seats, nearly double the Congress's tally of nine.
In Nagaland, in 2015, the eight Congress MLAs switched to the ruling Naga People's Front, of which the BJP is a coalition partner. Tripura saw several defections from the Congress to the BJP. The going will be tough in Meghalaya as Himanta Biswa Sarma, a former Congress leader and now the BJP's chief strategist in the northeast, has been working to unseat the Congress government. Mizoram appears to be the only safe bastion for the party.
Tunnel vision
In Gujarat, the Congress had banked on traders' resentment against GST in the urban centres, but contrary to its expectations, the BJP won hands down in Ahmedabad, Rajkot, Vadodara and Surat, winning 46 out of the 55 seats here. This micro picture is an indicator of the Congress's urban disconnect. During the campaign, Rahul had, to wide applause, described GST as "Gabbar Singh Tax" and also raised the issue of joblessness, but he failed to offer alternatives to the urban youth. His discourse primarily revolved around farmers, the rural population and marginalised sections, and it worked as the Congress won 67 of 77 seats in the rural areas.
However, in an increasingly urbanised and aspirational India, Rahul needs to script a new narrative for the youth to counter Modi's vision, which includes grand projects like the bullet train. Rahul perhaps has sensed this drift. In his first interview after taking charge as party president, he said: "You are going to see a change in the Congress party. You are going to see more people who excite you, people about whom you can say that they are somebody very interesting who have been put there by the Congress party."
Already, there has been a concerted effort by the Congress in the past one year to reach out to the urban voters, especially migrants working in the unorganised sector, who often swing election results in big cities. Rahul has set up a new unit in the party for workers from the unorganised sector. To reach out to the professional middle class, a constituency considered the BJP's stronghold, he has created the All India Professionals Congress, under Shashi Tharoor.
Rallying point
The brief success of the mahagathbandhan experiment in Bihar raised the hopes of many Congress leaders. C.P. Joshi, one of the architects of the grand alliance, says: "In 2014, the BJP won 31 per cent votes. If other parties rally around the Congress and consolidate the remaining 69 per cent votes, the BJP can be shown the door in 2019."
That would require Rahul to bring together bitter rivals, like the TMC and Left parties in West Bengal and SP and BSP in Uttar Pradesh. TMC chief Mamata Banerjee tweeted after the Gujarat election results: "I congratulate the Gujarat voters for their very balanced verdict at this hour. It is a temporary and face-saving win, but it shows a moral defeat for the BJP." In her prism, it's a moral defeat for the BJP, but not yet a moral victory for the Congress.
The dominant faction in the CPI(M), led by Prakash Karat, is unwilling to ally with the Congress after their bitter parting in 2008. Regional stalwarts like 
Naveen Patnaik and K. Chandrasekhar Rao have preferred to remain equidistant from the Congress and the BJP. Despite his personal equation with Sharad Pawar, Rahul couldn't prevent the NCP from contesting the Gujarat elections independently. Apart from the TMC, all other parties have suffered massive defeats in the recent past. Parties outside the NDA fold have less than 175 seats. The only electorally significant rival is the DMK, which could stage a comeback in 2019 since the ruling AIADMK in Tamil Nadu has been in disarray since Jayalalithaa's death.
Rahul's ultimate challenge will be matching up to Modi's charisma. Though he chose the electoral route to becoming Congress president, the baggage of being a dynast could weigh him down, at least so long as the narrative of Modi's 'humble origins' as a tea vendor retains its folkloric appeal. Apart from strengthening the party, Rahul still has to reinvent his image if he wishes to take the momentum of Gujarat forward to 2019.
