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The signals from Karnataka for Sonia Gandhi

In the Congress culture an electoral defeat is never seen as a reflection on the “high command.” But however you slice it, the Karnataka verdict can have only one meaning: the Sonia Gandhi style of party management is not working.

Two elements constitute this style: a conservative impulse and a timid approach to men and matters. This gets translated into (1) a failure to spell out definite goals; and, as a consequence, (2) an inability to put in place a lead team, with a recognised leader; and, (3) a dysfunctional, unexciting, unexacting, non-congenial working environment.

In Karnataka the Congress is blessed with half-a-dozen State-level leaders; the AICC establishment is over-represented with leaders from the State; yet, there was no cohesive team, no discernible strategy to meet the challenge of a well-oiled BJP.

For instance, if there was one lesson of the defeat in Gujarat in December 2007 it was the absolute imperative of telling the voters who was the party’s chief ministerial candidate. The BJP had a chief ministerial face; the Janata Dal (S) had a declared chief ministerial mascot; the Congress had at least six claimants.

The Congress high command liturgy insists on maintaining the fiction that the choice of a potential chief minister should be left to the Congress president (who will then direct the Congress Legislature Party to elect this or that leader) Inherent in this liturgy is an unwritten and unstated but a very potent proposition: no State level leader can be allowed to be in a position to claim that he or she was able to lead the party to a majority. That is the claim to be made only by the Congress president. The party would rather lose election after election than let someone else acquire the aura of a “popular” leader. Other factional leaders, too, become a willing accomplice; they would rather that the Congress lose than let this or that rival become the chief minister. The result is the Assembly elections have been lost, one after another. That completes the circle. Each electoral defeat reduces Ms. Sonia Gandhi’s authority to make leaders and cadres fall in line in the interest of a larger goal.

A leadership style that is too afraid or unwilling to give anyone offence ends up conceding veto power to everyone, without making anyone happy. Old, discredited “leaders” are allowed to create scenes, and then are mollycoddled. For instance, after K. Karunakaran managed to curdle up the Congress broth in Kerala he has been welcomed back and even made a member of the Congress Working Committee.

Indiscipline and defiance have been rewarded, to the dismay of all those workers who sided with the high command and the party when Mr. Karunakaran insisted on putting his family’s interests above those of the party. Similarly, in Karnataka Jaffer Sharief was demonstrably courted when he threatened to leave the party. Or, for instance, everyone in New Delhi and Lucknow was aware that Akhilesh Das was planning to join the BSP; yet, entrenched timidity prevented the party from kicking him out, rather, he was given all the time in the world to write his departure script — and, in the process, to cock a snook at the party leadership.

The current leadership style is obviously not working, then it has to give way to a new metier. Ms. Gandhi needs to overcome her fear of change. Her principal adviser, Ahmed Patel (political secretary to the Congress president), too, reinforces her preference for the status quo. The fear is that if the old, the incompetent or the selfish are weeded out, they will gang up, they will magically acquire a capacity to create discontent, even dissension, and there will be a challenge to Ms. Gandhi’s leadership.

This aversion to offending anyone has meant that the principle of accountability is getting devalued in the working of the Congress organisation. The most critical element in the AICC set-up is the system of general-secretaries. Instead of being the honest and impartial eyes and ears of the high command, the general secretaries have been allowed to become a source of friction in the running of the Congress State governments and of factionalism in the pradesh Congress affairs.

Rather than undertaking a drastic overhauling of the AICC secretariat, the party leadership further compounded the situation by appointing “coordinators” for a number of States. Instead of identifying and using the best and the brightest talent among the Congressmen, the leadership ends up converting the AICC into a tableau of multicultural representation.

Those who botched up the Congress show in Karnataka can be expected to come up with all kinds of reasons why the State was lost: a division in the secular vote, the unrelenting price rise, the unexpected Jaipur blasts, Ms. Mayawati’s poaching, etc. These excuses do not add up. If Ms. Gandhi does not change her ways of running the party or does not find herself a leaner and meaner team, Karnataka will be repeated in other parts of India later this year and then at the national level next year.

A leader who refuses to insist and impose her will also does not inspire. It should be obvious to Ms. Gandhi that the desire to take everyone along has diluted the party’s greatest asset: a credible reputation as a force for stability and good governance. During these last four years of the Manmohan Singh government, the Congress leadership has not been seen as making any demands on anyone; instead, it is perceived as always willing to accommodate outdated “leaders”, compromise with difficult and unattractive allies, and bargain with unhelpful supporting parties. And, in the process, the party loses the bargain with the voters.

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