Sitting beneath the portraits of Indira Gandhi, Rajiv Gandhi, and Sanjay Gandhi, 69-year-old Congress veteran Kamal Nath — the senior-most member of the current Lok Sabha who has been elected to the Lower House nine times — talks to Smita Gupta about the urgent need for organisational change as well as style of functioning in the party. Excerpts from the interview:
After the Congress was routed in the 2014 Lok Sabha elections, it set up a committee to introspect on the loss and held brainstorming sessions, but no revival plan emerged. Now the party is again talking of introspection.
First, let me address these election results. In Assam, the Congress was disadvantaged by incumbency of 15 years and a kind of a split in the party six months before the elections. Look at the BJP: in 2014, it won in 69 Assembly segments; this time it won in 60 seats. In the three other States [and Puducherry], the BJP has got four seats. In Kerala, where the Prime Minister had six public meetings and where ten ministers went, the BJP won one seat. Overall, the Congress won 115 seats; the BJP won 64 seats. The media has slanted this to see a major victory of the BJP. The reality is that the Congress got more seats and more votes.
Isn’t this the time for action rather than introspection?
I agree this is the time for action. We need to revamp the party structure. The current lot [of general secretaries] have served many years, probably the largest number of years that any set of people has served. We have to realise that politics has changed. The Congress must change with this changed politics. There’s a new generation of voters with new aspirations. The Congress can’t only trumpet the ideological issue. It has to become a party for the youth, and weaker sections and farmers. The ideological bandwidth is limited because everybody takes for granted the Congress’s ideology of secularism. We don’t have to sell it.
Each time there’s an electoral setback, the elevation of Rahul Gandhi is postponed on the grounds that it isn’t the right time. Some in the party even say he isn’t up to the job.
The Congress made Rahul Gandhi vice-president. It is for Rahul Gandhi to decide when he wants to take over the presidentship.
That’s not very democratic.
No, it is. When he was made vice-president, it was with the objective of his taking over as president.
In which other party do people have the luxury of deciding the timing of their own elevation?
It isn’t that he has the luxury. He has to choose his own timing because Mrs. Gandhi is still president. She hasn’t retired. Mrs. Gandhi and Rahul Gandhi must decide when he’ll take over. Mrs. Gandhi has the credibility of leading the party to victory in 2004 and 2009, particularly in 2004 against [Atal Bihari] Vajpayee when everybody ridiculed her as a foreigner. You must recognise this.
Are you saying Mrs. Gandhi should continue?
Mrs. Gandhi has successfully led the party. We can’t say that she be sidelined in any way; at the same time, the day-to-day affairs of the party must be handled by Rahul Gandhi.
Do you think Mr. Gandhi is up to the job?
Rahul is being tested in the most trying and difficult times. And it is not that he has made a good situation bad; I believe he has made a bad situation better.
In what way?
We had incumbency in 2014, and in Assam and Kerala. Our alliance with the Left in West Bengal was in conflict with Kerala. In West Bengal it hurt the Left; in Kerala it hurt the Congress. We’ve done better in West Bengal; we’ll form a government in Puducherry.
There is a sense that Rahul Gandhi is not a 24x7 politician.
He is. Rahul works very hard. He has been a 24x7 politician for the last 11 months.
In Assam, couldn’t Himanta Biswa Sarma’s exit have been avoided?
He had a one-point agenda to remove the Chief Minister. Six months before the elections, that wasn’t possible. He wasn’t willing for anything else.
Wouldn’t it be a good idea to change the Chief Minister a year or so before the elections? Tarun Gogoi was in power for three terms.
Yes, it could be said that a Chief Minister who’s done such a long time… change him. But there was a decision that he should continue.
Isn’t there a need to build leadership in the States?
Politics has changed: you need to build leadership in the States, have a face to challenge the BJP. Those days when you could decide later are all over. People look at who the contesting leader is. Congress needs to define in every State who the leader is.
smita.g@thehindu.co.in
