ON Feb 23, Rahul Gandhi, the 44-year-old vice president of the Indian National Congress, stunned his sceptical supporters by announcing that he was going for a few weeks on a leave of absence “to reflect on the past and plan the party’s future strategy”.

Few accepted at face value the avowed reasons for this extraordinary step. Speculation abounds as to the true reason. Reportedly, he sought greater control despite his failure to provide leadership, or inspire the people.

Parliament’s budget session began on Feb 23, the day he left. He was due to lead a party agitation on Feb 25 against the Land Acquisition Ordinance. The irresponsibility is typical.

The Congress is facing a crisis of leadership.

He will not be missed. For, he had declined to accept the duty to lead his party in parliament when it convened after the electoral debacle last May.

What is more important is that the party’s general body, the All India Congress Committee is due to meet in April in Bangalore.

He has little to show by way of results ever since he became member of parliament and rose to be vice president of the Congress in January 2013. One cannot think of a single memorable speech in parliament or outside.

Gimmicks were deployed aplenty such as spending a night in a humble dwelling in a village in the company of the former Labour leader David Miliband when he was minister.

What is remembered is an arrogant public attack on the Manmohan Singh government. He barged into a media briefing in progress by a lackey, Ajay Maken, and interrupted to say “That is all nonsense” a propos of a measure proposed by the government.

This, of course, is no way for any party functionary to behave towards his own government; least of all by a spring chicken towards an elder.

Rahul Gandhi’s pledges ceased to carry any meaning. Four years ago, he said at an election rally in Uttar Pradesh: “They laugh at me, because I go to the houses of the poor, drink water from the wells. … Your voice will be heard in the Lok Sabha. I will not go away. Till UP stands on its feet, I will stay.”

He reneged on his promise to voice the concerns of the people of UP in the Lok Sabha and outside. All he has provided are sporadic forays into the state. He is a failure without even a promise of reform. Established at considerable expense is a secretariat of young ‘experts’ to advise him. It has been a waste because he simply lacks the capacity to profit by advice.

What is troubling people at large is that the party is hurtling downhill with none to stop the decline. Congress president Sonia Gandhi is not in the pink of health and has shown no desire to take matters into her own hands.

Not only the Congress but the country owes a lot to her. Were it not for her entry into politics in a big way in 1996 to eliminate deadwood like P.V. Narasimha Rao and party president Sitaram Kesri, the Congress could not have returned to power in 2004 to govern for a whole decade till last year. She checked the BJP juggernaut — but undermined the Manmohan Singh government.

Now, in 2015, India faces a grim situation. The Congress not only lost power but also its will after it was wiped out in states more than one and reduced to a rump in the Lok Sabha. Prime Minister Narendra Modi enjoys a virtual monopoly on power which he wields to promote a divisive agenda. Political partisanship governs appointments to statutory and even constitutional posts. There are efforts by non-Congress leaders in UP and Bihar to establish a united front. Amidst all this, the Congress is demoralised and bereft of alternative leadership.

From 1972 Indira Gandhi reduced Congress chief ministers to the status of hand-picked functionaries. Not the Congress legislature party, but she as Congress president selected chief ministers. Rajiv Gandhi kept up this practice after his victory in 1984. Sonia Gandhi followed suit.

In the days of Jawaharlal Nehru, the states were governed by powerful chief ministers who governed in their own right. Now there is a vacuum in leadership; for Sonia Gandhi was careful, like her mother-in-law, to ensure that no alternative leadership could surface.

So faction-ridden is the Congress that its ‘leaders’, such as they are, prefer to obey her diktat rather than accept anyone else as the boss.

With Rahul Gandhi’s colossal failure and Sonia Gandhi’s waning leadership, the Congress is in a parlous situation. No alternative is in sight. Yet, one must be devised if only to impart meaning to India’s democracy. It yearns for a strong opposition to confront rampant abuse of power.

The writer is an author and a lawyer based in Mumbai.

Published in Dawn, February 28th, 2015

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