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Business News/ Opinion / Congress in self-denial mode
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Congress in self-denial mode

Congress in self-denial mode

The generation of crisis managers, who effectively and efficiently steered the party through critical times, seems to be over in the Congress party. Photo: HTPremium

The generation of crisis managers, who effectively and efficiently steered the party through critical times, seems to be over in the Congress party. Photo: HT

“Tell me MacMahon, how long did it take you to learn to play chess so badly?"

“Sir, it’s been nights of study and self-denial"—A conversation during a display match in Northern Ireland in 1947, as quoted by Stephen Pile in The (Incomplete) Book of Failures.

It seems self denial is the order of the day for India’s ruling Congress party. It is in crisis—a deep and unprecedented crisis. However, its leadership does not understand it—or rather does not behave as it has got any idea about the causes of the current crisis. Instead, it’s in denial mode.

The generation of crisis managers, who effectively and efficiently steered the party through critical times, seems to be over in the Congress party. Photo: HT

All of them have proved their mettle in their respective states as reasonably good administrators and some of them are known for their ability to manage crises. However, their experience has been of no use to the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) in ending the impasse created after the opposition’s demand for Singh’s resignation in the ‘coalgate scam’. The ruling party admits that this demand is made keeping the next general election in view. But India’s grand old party with over a century in politics does not have a strategy to counter it politically. It has even failed to get the opposition to the discussion table.

The generation of crisis managers, who effectively and efficiently steered the party through critical times, seems to be over in the Congress party, which currently has the third generation of post-independence leaders at the helm. In the current dispensation, people who matter have no experience in managing the party during a crisis. The bureaucrat turned ‘reluctant politician’ Manmohan Singh prefers to confine himself to the economic policies, neither Kapil Sibal nor Salman Khurshid have been backroom political managers; finance minister P. Chidambaram was never known as a good strategist. Leaders with experience such as Digvijay Singh, Ghulam Nabi Azad or Ashok Gehlot are no longer key actors on the central stage. A.K. Antony’s role is “reserved" for utterly critical occasions while the once perennial troubleshooter Pranab Mukherjee has been elevated to the Rashtrapati Bhavan. In the list of leaders, the UPA chairperson is comparatively junior with hardly one and a half decades’ experience in active politics.

To be fair, the nature of crises has also changed. Although Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) is the main political opponent, the UPA-II’s worst crisis came from non-political sources such as the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) reports and the civil society movement led by activist Anna Hazare. The present leaders are absolutely clueless about the political handling of such challenges. Even to the BJP’s demand for resignation of the PM—many of the leaders admit that it’s an unreasonable demand when the government has around two years left to complete its term.

In the Indian parliamentary system, the report of the national audit body is not the final word. The Public Accounts Committee (PAC) consisting of MPs has to study the report and submit its findings to parliament. PAC is headed by a member from the main opposition party. The National Democratic Aliiance (NDA) is conveniently neglecting this fact. CAG’s arguments on loss to the national exchequer are based on notional figures. Even then the Congress war lords are short of ammunition for real time firing.

Many MPs of the Congress admit that the “paralysed leadership" has left the party cadre also completely directionless. The top leadership does not communicate to its second and third tier of leaders about the stance the party is taking, the strategy it is adopting, the plank on which it wants to fight and the arguments it has to put forward to counter the political attacks.

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Published: 07 Sep 2012, 12:14 PM IST
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