Bang in the middle of an off season, touristy Udaipur witnessed an unusual burst of activity in the sweltering summer heat. Congress leaders from across the country descended on the city on May 13 for the three-day Nav Sankalp Shivir, to brainstorm on how to revive the party.
The route to the conclave’s venue was lined with party flags and posters of leaders Sonia and Rahul Gandhi. Rivalling them in number were saffron flags—symbolic of the Congress’s challenge of redefining its ideology and taking a clear stand on the BJP’s Hindu majoritarian narrative. It also indicated the high probability of the Congress losing Rajasthan, one of only two states it rules, to the saffron party in the assembly polls due next year. The posters, for their part, emphasised the leadership question.
Around 450 Congress leaders went into a huddle at the Taj Aravali on the outskirts of Udaipur. Their phones were taken away from them, as they confronted the three most important questions facing the party—how to tackle the hindutva challenge, the leadership issue, and how to end the electoral drought.
The discussions at the Nav Sankalp Shivir concluded on the afternoon of May 15 with the rallying cry of ‘Bharat Jodo’ (Unite India). The Congress hopes that the slogan, inspired by the noted Gandhian S.N. Subba Rao’s motto ‘Jodo, Jodo, Bharat Jodo’, will be a potent war cry in the run-up to the Lok Sabha polls in 2024. It is supposed to be the party’s counter to what it describes as the BJP’s divisive politics and “pseudo-nationalism”. The Udaipur declaration adopted at the conclave stated that the party strongly condemns the “rising communalism propagated by the BJP and the RSS to create communal polarisation to divide the society and our nation”.
In his valedictory address, Rahul pitched the Congress as the principal opponent of the BJP in an “ideological battle”. “It is the Congress’s responsibility to stop this fire [of communalism]. It is the Congress’s responsibility to take our message to the people of India. It is a battle for India’s future,” he said. He described his fight against the BJP-RSS ideology as the “battle of his life”.
The Congress plans to flag off a ‘Bharat Jodo Yatra’ on October 2, Mahatma Gandhi’s birth anniversary. It aims at presenting the Congress as India’s unifying force, as opposed to the divisive BJP. The yatra will also be an endeavour to reconnect with the masses, since the party has accepted that it has lost touch with the grassroots.
Pressing for change: Chhattisgarh Chief Minister Bhupesh Baghel was part of the group that saw no harm in the Congress involving itself in projects that had a religious character | PTI
But it seems the ideological clarity that Congress leaders hoped to get from Udaipur still remains elusive. The most intense and spirited discussion at the conclave was on how to take on the BJP’s hindutva agenda and its masculine nationalism, without being branded as anti-Hindu or anti-national, or being accused of indulging in appeasement of minorities. The ideological purists opposed the Congress’s religious outreach that has been labelled as ‘soft hindutva’. They said it yielded very limited results and the party ended up looking like a pale version of the BJP.
The group also opposed pre-poll temple runs by leaders, saying it only exposed the party to barbs from the BJP even as the target audience remained unimpressed. On the other hand, there were leaders who saw no harm in the Congress participating in religious events and involving itself in projects that had a religious character. For example, Chhattisgarh Chief Minister Bhupesh Baghel argued that his government had taken up projects that were of importance to the Hindu community, but that did not stop it from calling out the BJP for its anti-minority policies. In the end, the party papered over the differences by resolving to follow Gandhian principles.
But trying to find an ideological reset in the past may not solve the problems of the present—be it the controversy related to Gyanvapi Mosque, the debate over hijab and halal, or the merits of ‘bulldozer politics’. In responding to such issues, the party would have to deal with the BJP’s attempts to label it as anti-Hindu or anti-national; the Shivir, however, has not provided answers on how to deal with it.
“We cannot give up our basic ideology,” said senior Congress leader Ajay Maken, when asked about the pitfalls of aggressively taking on the BJP on issues of religion and nationalism. He said the link between the divisive agenda and economic distress makes things different now. “Why are all these divisive issues being raised at this time? It is clearly an effort to divert attention from issues such as inflation or unemployment. People are in great distress. Sooner rather than later, they will realise that there is a connection between their plight and the BJP’s divisive agenda,” said Maken.
The Udaipur meet also failed to provide satisfactory answers to the leadership question. But, with his Delhi-Udaipur train journey, his interventions in the group discussions, the demands made at the conclave that he should take over as party chief, and his valedictory address in which he made it clear that he was not going anywhere and that his was a lifelong struggle against the BJP-RSS, the spotlight remained firmly on Rahul. Coming after the assembly polls debacle, it was apparent that the conclave was aimed at creating momentum for the presidential election to be concluded in September this year.
The party’s official position is that the process to elect the president is already on and cannot be short-circuited. However, the question whether Rahul will contest the election remained unanswered. And it does not do his image any good that leaders like Sunil Jakhar in Punjab and Hardik Patel in Gujarat quit the party, raising questions about his style of functioning.
Meanwhile, there were questions of whether the conclave ought to have been held after the new party president took charge. A senior Congress leader, aware of the discussions at the topmost level, said it was indeed discussed whether it would be better for the Shivir to be held after the presidential polls. “But two things went against that line of thought,” said the leader. “The first was that the Congress president had promised that the Shivir would be held soon. And the second was that reforms are not dependent on an individual becoming party president. Also, there would have been state elections in October after the new president took charge.”
It is clear that the Gandhis have not ceded control. Through the conclave, Sonia fulfilled her promise to the “G-23” ginger group that she would hold a Chintan Shivir to discuss issues raised by them. Prominent G-23 leaders like Ghulam Nabi Azad and Anand Sharma were seated in the front row, and others from the group were given lead roles in the discussions. But their demand for reviving the party’s parliamentary board to enable broad-based decision-making was not accepted. Instead, Sonia announced that she would set up an advisory group, drawn from the Congress Working Committee, and she made it clear that it would not be a collective decision-making body.
“What is accepted or not is a different thing,” said senior Congress leader Prithviraj Chavan, a G-23 member. “But we are thankful to the Congress president for the opportunity to raise these matters and have a free and frank discussion.”
A slew of changes were also announced, which included the ‘one family, one ticket’ norm (albeit with a rider), reserving 50 per cent of positions for the youth, fixed five-year terms for office-bearers, separate departments for election management, and gathering feedback from the people on a regular basis, strengthening the party at the grassroots, and regular assessment of the performance of office-bearers. The conclave also resolved to keep avenues open for forming pragmatic political alliances, while ensuring the party’s strength and growth in all districts.
“We have got down to business in right earnest,” said Maken. “The AICC general secretaries and in-charges have begun meeting to shortlist the actionable points, and start working on them.”