Subhash Rai: Journalist from India

Nihil humani a me alienum puto

Search Results

Congress must get rid of disruptive leaders

without comments

Opposition leaders meet in the chambers of Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge on December 4, 2023.

The Congress’s performance yesterday can be looked at as a mixed bag. For those hoping for signs of a silver lining in the political firmament, it comes as another cruel setback, making 2024 look like a goner. 

The Congress’s victory in Telangana, of course, is an important gain. The wresting of the state from the BRS (Bharat Rashtra Samithi) or the erstwhile Telangana Rashtra Samithi, will reduce the mischief-making potential of KCR. His “third way or the highway” is severely dented by this defeat.

But if you look at Rajasthan, clearly, the failure lies with the local strongman that is Ashok Gehlot. Apart from showing the Congress central leadership in poor light in the run-up to the Congress president’s election, his inability to work with the former deputy chief minister, Sachin Pilot, was a costly disservice to the party. There were no consequences for Gehlot despite these attempts that only served to belittle the central leadership. The Congress party and the opposition in general have to pay for Gehlot’s skulduggery. Kamal Nath, in Madhya Pradesh, rivalled Gehlot in his obvious inability to understand the historical lurch his party and the country is facing. His political incompetence in denying a few seats to the Samajwadi Party damaged opposition unity or peddling soft Hindutva is proof that he is past his shelf life. 

The failure of these two regional satraps provides the central leadership an opportunity to get rid of deadwood across the party. The opposition parties have no choice but to regroup and work for together for their and democracy’s survival in India. But that sense of desperation cannot be reason for more hiccups along the way. There has to be substantial and visible opposition unity henceforth. It is tempting, and you would probably see a few stories on how there is now a clear north-south political divide in the country. That would be a simplistic view, given the not-so-negligible presence of the party in many of the Southern states, especially in Karnataka. One can only hope that the Congress would have finally learnt its lessons from today’s showing and take corrective measures to ensure that the opposition can put up a creditable performance in 2024.

Written by Subhash Rai

December 4th, 2023 at 5:53 pm

Posted in Politics