The Congress party, which was mostly headed by the members of the Nehru family after independence is turning quickly into a Gandhi-family centric party. Is it a new phenomena? The answer is no. Even during Indira Gandhi's time, the situation was similar. It was only during Nehru's time, there was some room for others views in the party fora. What will be the likely fallout of this? To find out the details, we need to dig a little deeper.
During Nehru's time, he was the tallest leader that the Congress party had. But, there were other leaders who have made significant contributions. This includes Patel, Ambedkar & a host of others. But, there were cases like that of defence minister Krishna Menon's which did embarrass the party, but Nehru could brush it aside because of his stature & influence.
During Indira's time, she ensured that no other leader in the party grew big enough to challenge her authority. Whenever it happened, the punishment was severe. Very soon most of the congressmen realized that it is the cronyism which gets rewarded and performance took a backseat. This started the rut which ended in emergency and subsequent Janata government. Indira managed to break the Janata party and managed to come back to power, but unfortunately could not last longer.
Rajiv Gandhi started off very well, made the right moves, but the party, which was used to cronyism ensured that Rajiv did not make much progress that he wanted to. He made some of the worst mistakes like the Shah Bano case which will continue to haunt the country for a long time. Nehru's gift to India was the Kashmir problem which Indira allowed to grow, while Rajiv's gift was his inability to enforce uniform civil code when he commanded 4/5th majority in parliament and had a supreme court verdict to help him in his efforts.
Now, Sonia & Rahul are also trying to cultivate the same breed of cronyism. This is leading to most of the top leaders being spineless and non-performers. Take the case of former home minister Shivraj Patil. The way he handed 26/11 was a disaster. At the state levels, the party is headed mostly by those loyalists who do not have neither a mass base nor have their own point of view on any key issues. In quite a few key states like Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu, Karnataka & West Bengal, the party has been piggy-backing on other regional parties for a very long time. In quite a few other key states like UP, Bihar & Gujarat, it has no base.
Where does the party go from here? Rahul Gandhi made all the right noises like his father. He talked about democratization of the party, but with no real action on the ground. He picked up good issues to talk about, but only in opposition ruled states. In most of the opposition-ruled states, the party has not been raising any real issues to keep the state governments on their toes. Karnataka's case is the best example for this.
In order to change things for the better, the party high-command (Sonia & Rahul) need to groom the next level of leaders who are capable individuals who are allowed to speak their mind and implement their views. The party needs more intellectuals who can bring in lot of experience in different fields to ensure better governance. It is not difficult for the party to attract better talent, but the party needs to change its DNA to become more democratic & accommodating.
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