With the Congress party having been synonymous with democratic India for the past so many decades, it would have been difficult to envisage a scenario where the grand old party of Indian politics would one day be struggling for its very existence. A lack of assertive leadership at the top has cost the party dear. A party that, in the past, could boast of charismatic leaders, who could turn the electoral tides in its favour now bemoans the lack of a decisive leader at the helm who could steer the party out of the troubled waters that it finds itself in. Beset with an array of leaders who would like to see the party functioning as it is doing now, as opposed to a few who want the party to adopt sweeping changes in the way it is run to revive its fortunes and prevent the party’s further drift; the matter of ‘loyalists’ and ‘rebels’ has further pushed the party into a quagmire of uncertainty. The ‘mishandling’ of Jyotiraditya Scindia which saw a switch-in-sides by the young leader, and the now-quelled rebellion by Sachin Pilot in Rajasthan, should serve as a wake-up call for the Congress party, which has already seen a steady exodus of party leaders into the ‘magnanimous’ fold of the BJP. The old guard has to make way for the new legion of youngsters for any party to survive in the power games that characterise politics today. The charge of the Modi brigade has already destroyed the Congress’ delusions about its invincibility and established the infallibility of a party structure which adheres to cadre-based policies and strong leadership as its basic foundation. With these distinctive traits, the saffron party today rides the crest of success and has come to occupy the national centre stage of Indian politics. With its decades-old dominance, the search for a leader should not have been a cumbersome exercise for the Congress. But its procrastination has only emboldened the BJP to doggedly pursue its ‘Congress-mukt Bharat’ agenda. Without a strong and purposeful leader to lead it from the front, the Congress stands to lose its relevance in the current political scenario of the country.
PACHU MENON, Margao