INDIAN MANDALA The decline of Congress, a family affair

Longtime leading politicians continue to leave the ranks of the party that dominated Indian politics for half a century. The reasons are to be found in the lack of renewal of the party which, on the contrary, has increasingly centralized power in the hands of the Gandhi family. Rahul’s march to unite the country against the BJP is unlikely to succeed.

Milan () – The weakening of the Congress Party, the main opposition party in India, is increasingly evident. end of august Ghulam Nabi Azad, governor of the Jammu and Kashmir region between 2005 and 2008 and several times a minister in successive Indian governments, left Congress with the intention of creating his own party, distancing himself from Rahul Gandhi, son of the leader of the Congress, Sonia. In 2019 Rahul had resigned from the task of leading the political group, which over the years has been losing more and more followers.

That is why earlier this month Rahul Gandhi began a march from south to north across the country, with less than two years to go before the next general election in which Congress will challenge Prime Minister Narendra’s Bharatiya Janata Prty (BJP). Mod. After Azad’s resignation, a hundred Kashmiri politicians, officials and deputies left Gandhi’s ranks to join the new political grouping.

The decline, for some, began precisely in 2014, with the national victory of the BJP. In 2019, Congress won just 52 seats out of 542 in the Lok Sabha, India’s lower house. In 2020, 23 familiar faces from the party resigned, expressing, in a letter addressed to Sonia Gandhi, their disagreement with the leadership, which in their opinion does not accept dissenting voices.

Addressing Sonia Gandhi, Azad asserts that Rahul “has destroyed the consultative mechanism that previously existed. Party decisions have been monopolized by a new circle of inexperienced sycophants, displacing all veteran and long-serving leaders from office.”

In fact, the first division of the party dates back to 1969, when the leadership was in the hands of Indira Gandhi – daughter of the post-independence prime minister, Jawaharlal Nehru – who was assassinated in 1984. Indira centralized power in New Delhi and marginalized the internal opposition, which caused the resignation of several politicians, who began to form regional leftist parties. Rajiv, Indira’s son who succeeded her after her death, continued along the same lines and prevented attempts at reform.

Rajiv was also assassinated and, since the mid-1990s, the leadership of the party has almost always been in the hands of his wife, Sonia. Therefore, it is clear that power has been concentrated in the hands of the Gandhi family. But the centralization of power has not been accompanied by the construction of an alternative ideology to that of the BJP. Fragmentation, especially at the regional level -such as the Trinamool Congress and the National People’s Party- and the lack of an ideology that is not just one of mere opposition is a problem that does not only affect the Indian left, but rather the lack of a Representative pluralism of those who do not recognize themselves in the BJP risks undermining the democratic process throughout the country.

There is still a long way to go before the next elections, but what is shaping up is a scenario in which the only alternatives to the BJP may be other populist parties, such as the Aam Aadmi Pary (Aap) that rules Delhi and Punjab, or the more extremist Shiv Sena, which is based in Mumbai and Maharashtra state.

It’s hard to imagine Rahul Gandhi’s march succeeding. Named “Bharat Jodo Yatra“, a march to unite India, is reminiscent of previous marches the party has held since its inception, notably those of Mahatma Gandhi in the 1930s against British colonial rule. However, so far it has only served to criticize the BJP for dividing the country on sectarian or religious issues

The itinerary has 3,570 kilometers and is expected to be completed in 5 months. On the day of his departure, in the southern state of Tamil Nadu where his father Rajiv Gandhi was assassinated in 1991, Rahul tweeted: “I lost my father to the politics of hate and division. I will not lose my beloved country for the same reason.” Once again, everything continues to revolve around the Gandhi family and not the problems of India. There really is a long way to go before Indian voters can regain confidence in Congress.