The Congress brass has begun introspection at a three-day-long ‘Nav Sankalp chintan shivir’ in Udaipur, but even as it sits down to draft its strategy ahead, reports from similar exercises in the past remain tucked away.
The latest one was a five-member committee headed by Maharashtra Minister Ashok Chavan, which submitted its report in June last year on the Congress’s defeat in Kerala, West Bengal, Assam, and Puducherry. The report, despite demands from members of the Congress Working Committee, was not tabled at the party’s highest decision-making forum.
After the 2014 Lok Sabha debacle, the party had similarly constituted a committee under A.K. Antony to probe the reasons for its defeat. The committee ended up being an exercise to exonerate the Gandhi family while blaming the party’s pro-minority image for the defeat.
Reports from these committees constituted in a moment of defeat have rarely seen the light of the day and it remains unclear what recommendations were made or what corrective steps followed, if at all, since they were not discussed at wider party platforms.
Mr. Antony, who has gone into semi-retirement, is in Kerala and not participating in any discussions in Udaipur. Meanwhile, speaking to The Hindu, Mr. Chavan said that he hoped the report submitted by his committee would be discussed at the chintan shivir. “The report was well taken. And let’s hope, our findings will be discussed,” he said.
The Ashok Chavan committee that had Salman Khurshid, Manish Tewari, Vincent H. Pala and Jyothi Mani spoke to over 160 people before compiling a forensic analysis of the defeat in the four States. Sources familiar with the findings of the committee said that there were systemic flaws in the State units, heavy dependence on the central leadership and ineffective alliances.
Assam
The committee found that the organisation had atrophied in the State and no efforts were made in last two decades to strengthen it. As many as 18 of the 33 District Congress Committees were found to be practically defunct. There were very few actual booth committees. The Congress campaign was ineffective even after the issues on which the election was fought were identified by an external consultant engaged by the central leadership. The candidate selection process was disastrously delayed, with the screening committee formed just two days after the nomination of candidates started in the State. The Congress’s anti-CAA stance failed to resonate in Upper Assam and North Bank because of the contradiction created by the alliance with the AIUDF. The opposition to an alliance with the AIUDF from many leaders was ignored.
Kerala
The committee notes that the Congress-led United Democratic Front in Kerala had lost the election even before it started because of the prevailing situation and several missteps taken by the leadership. The party ignored the pro-incumbency current created during the pandemic because of Pinarayi Vijayan government’s work and harped on various corruption charges against his government, which failed to sway the voter. The party also lost out on the minority support of both Christians and Muslims. The Left could convince the Muslim voters that it is best placed to take on the BJP. The Christian voters abandoned the UDF because of the Congress’s proximity to the IUML and the departure of the Kerala Congress (Mani).
West Bengal
Here too, the defeat was blamed on a faulty alliance with the Left and Indian Secular Front, a front organisation of a Muslim sect called Furfura Sharif. The Left and Congress were in an alliance in the 2016 election too. However, in the intervening five years, they never worked as a coherent coalition. There were hardly any joint efforts to oppose the TMC or the BJP. The decision to continue with the Left and inclusion of the ISF, the committee found, was taken without wider consultations. CLP leader Abdul Mannan and a member of the Rajya Sabha, whom the committee does not name, unilaterally took the call and PCC president Adhir Ranjan Chaudhary went along. Mr. Chaudhary himself was a reluctant captain, as he was dividing his time between Delhi, where he is the Lok Sabha floor leader of the party, and Kolkata.
Puducherry
The committee found that the party’s friction with Kiran Bedi brought to a grinding halt all its social schemes, and the Congress government was seen by voters as ineffective and unable to deliver. Conceding far too much space to the DMK because of underconfidence among the Congress leadership in the Union Territory was imprudent, the committee found. The improper handling of factional politics within the party left the Congress limping. The party did not handle the exit of former Chief Minister N. Rangaswamy. Parachuting V. Narayanswamy, who was not even an MLA, caused a lot of heartache. The final blow was the defection of former State unit chief Namassivayam to the BJP.
