Last update:November 30, 2024, 2:45 p.m. IST

Maharashtra’s defeat triggered another Congress committee. History suggests the report will be written, filed and forgotten

The Raj Committee in Congress has been a quick and practical solution for decades. (AFP)

The outcome of the Congress Working Committee (CWC) meeting convened to discuss the election debacle in Maharashtra was the decision to set up internal committees to look into issues related to electoral performance. According to the general secretary of the All India Congress Committee (AICC) in charge of party organization, who spoke to the media after the CWC meeting, “the CWC has decided to constitute internal committees to examine issues related to electoral results and organizational issues within the bloc. and at the district level. »

Venugopal, widely seen as Rahul Gandhi’s eyes and ears and a man for all seasons, would be aware that a similar announcement was made when the Congress lost Rajasthan and Chhattisgarh and performed poorly in Madhya Pradesh in December 2023. Poll debacle panels led by senior Congress leaders such as Manish Tewari and Prithviraj Chavan had visited Bhopal, Raipur and Jaipur to speak with several party candidates to identify the reasons for the defeats.

Venugopal did not comment on the fact that these reports, submitted between December 2023 and January 2024, have not yet been discussed by the Congress Working Committee. No follow-up action was taken either.

Then AICC chief Mallikarjun Kharge, Rahul Gandhi and Venugopal filled various other panels with leaders like Ashok Gehlot, Bhupesh Baghel, TS Singh Deo, Sachin Pilot, Ajay Maken and others for Haryana and Maharashtra, without addressing responsibility for the party’s defeats in 2007. Rajasthan and Chhattisgarh.

The Raj Committee in Congress has been a quick and practical solution for decades. In May 2022, Sonia Gandhi, who was then acting president of the party, established a high-level Empowered Action Group (EAG) to address the grand old party’s political challenges ahead of the 2024 elections. However, it did not There is no record of EAG deliberations between 2022 and 2024, nor of the formulation of a strategy for the 18th Lok Sabha polls.

In April 2020, Sonia Gandhi also appointed an 11-member advisory group to develop the party’s views on various contemporary issues. This committee, which included Manmohan Singh, P. Chidambaram, Manish Tewari, Jairam Ramesh, Randeep Singh Surjewala, Praveen Chakravarty, Gaurav Vallabh (now in the BJP), Supriya Shrinate and Rohan Gupta (now in the BJP), met rarely or took measurements.

In September 2020, Sonia Gandhi, while carrying out a major organizational reshuffle, constituted a six-member special committee to assist her on organizational and operational matters. The members included AK Antony, Ahmed Patel (now deceased), Ambika Soni, KC Venugopal, Mukul Wasnik and Randeep Singh Surjewala. Instead of appointing a replacement for Ahmed Patel, the committee disappeared.

A year later, in 2023, another panel was formed, ostensibly to address issues such as inflation and unemployment and to organize “sustained agitations.” The nine-member panel included Digvijaya Singh, Priyanka Gandhi, Uttam Kumar Reddy, BK Hariprasad, Udit Raj, Ripun Bora, Manish Chathrath, Ragini Nayak and Zubair Khan. Ripun Bora has since defected to the Trinamool Congress.

Kharge, Sonia and Rahul Gandhi are also in possession of several other reports which are gathering dust at 24, Akbar Road. These include Ram Niwas Mirdha’s organizational poll report, Manmohan Singh’s report on party funds, PA Sangma and Sam Pitroda’s report on organizational modernization and Pranab Mukherjee’s report on organizational affairs. The list also includes documents prepared by the AICC Department of Policy and Planning (DIPCO) and the Future Challenges Group, of which Rahul Gandhi was a member. Additionally, three reports submitted by AK Antony on various electoral debacles between 2014 and 2019.

In a nutshell, almost all of these panels and committees have recommended radical changes to the organization, but intrinsic constraints have so far prevented any concrete action.

For example, both Mirdha and Antony emphasized the need for “democratic” organizational elections after observing that the party polled fewer votes in many states where the number of primary members was higher. This was especially true for the Congress in Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh, Odisha and a few other states.

In July 2007, a party panel headed by Pranab Mukherjee, then foreign minister, proposed scrapping Congress committees at the block, city and district levels, suggesting their replacement with units in polling booths and in Assembly and Parliament constituencies. The goal was to make Congress more “election-friendly” and eliminate conflicts between congressional district committees and candidates for office. However, management is still deliberating on the pros and cons of this suggestion.

Like Antony, Mukherjee also insisted on selection of Assembly and Parliament candidates at least six months before voting. Yet, subsequent elections, including numerous National Assembly polls and four Lok Sabha elections in 2009, 2014, 2019 and 2024, show no evidence of the implementation of this recommendation.

On November 28, 2024, seventeen years later, Kharge at the CWC emphasized the same theme that Mukherjee, Antony and Digvijaya had stated in 2007. “The recent election results also indicate that we should begin our election preparations in the states at least one year in advance. Our teams must be on the ground early. The first thing we should do is check the electoral rolls so that the votes of our supporters remain on the list under all circumstances…” Kharge said.

In 1849, the French writer Jean-Baptiste Alphonse Karr wrote: “what goes around comes around”— the more things change, the more they stay the same.

The functioning of Congress is a living testimony to this adage.

The author is a visiting scholar at the Observer Research Foundation. A well-known political analyst, he has written several books, including ’24 Akbar Road’ and ‘Sonia: A Biography’. The opinions expressed in the article above are personal and solely those of the author. They do not necessarily reflect the views of News18.