Congress’s post-poll strategy shift: Overhaul in MP, experience in Chhattisgarh

Smarting under the shock of its humiliating poll routs, the Congress has brought about a generational shift in its leadership in Madhya Pradesh but opted for continuity and experience in Chhattisgarh, hoping that the changes will revive the party ahead of the 2024 Lok Sabha elections.

In Madhya Pradesh, the Congress has chosen 50-year-old Jitu Patwari, a grassroots leader from the backward classes, as the replacement for its 76-year-old state unit chief, Kamal Nath. The party has also appointed 49-year-old Umang Singhar, a fourth-term legislator from the Gandhwani Assembly segment, as its Legislative Party Leader — by extension, also the Leader of Opposition — in the Vidhan Sabha, while 38-year-old second-term MLA from Ater, Hemant Katare, a Brahmin, will be the party’s deputy leader in the Assembly.

In Chhattisgarh, where the Congress was sure of a win but was handed a crushing defeat by the BJP, the party has picked veteran leader, 69-year-old Charan Das Mahant, a known OBC face in the state, as its Legislative Party chief. However, the Congress high command has decided to continue with Bastar MP and tribal leader Deepak Baij as the Chhattisgarh Congress chief. It was under Baij’s command that the party suffered the recent poll loss. Worse, he even lost the election from his traditional seat of Chitrakot.

In Rajasthan, the third Hindi-belt state where the Congress lost to the BJP on December 3, the party is yet to announce changes in its leadership. However, sources told The Federal that the party is unlikely to give any major role in the state unit or the Assembly to its former CM, Ashok Gehlot.

Breaking free of clutches of MP satraps

Of the new appointments declared by Congress general secretary (organisation), KC Venugopal, on Saturday (December 16) evening, the changes in Madhya Pradesh are most significant. For, they signal the party high command’s belated realisation that the Congress needs to break away from the clutches of satraps such as Nath, Digvijaya Singh, and Suresh Pachouri if it hopes to rebuild itself.

For the past several decades, Nath, Singh, Pachouri, Jyotiraditya Scindia (when he was in the party), and even the less influential Arun Yadav had carved up the Congress organisation in different parts of the state to run it as their personal fiefdoms. The Congress high command not just turned a Nelson’s eye to the practice that was visibly weakening the party but, during candidate selection for elections, even condoned it, ostensibly to minimise intra-party feuds.

The appointments of Patwari and Singhar, for the first time in over two decades, break away from this counter-productive balancing act that the Congress’s central leadership has hitherto employed, with devastating consequences. Patwari and Singhar may lack the formidable political credentials of a Nath or Digvijaya, and their financial muscle certainly pales in comparison to these two former CMs. However, both Patwari and Singhar are combative leaders who do not owe their newly given station to the largesse of Nath, Singh, or Pachouri and, as such, can steer the party with a fresh perspective.

This is not to say that Patwari, Singhar, or even Katare, the least experienced in this troika, will have it easy moulding the party differently. A majority of the Congress’s 60-plus MLAs in the state, as well as those heading its district and block units, are people handpicked either by Nath, Singh, Pachouri, or Yadav, and their loyalties to these benefactors will not change merely because the Congress high command has sought to diminish the hold these satraps had over the party organisation.

Tall order

As the state unit chief, Patwari’s task is the most unenviable. The former Rau legislator, who lost the December 3 polls by a massive margin of over 35,000 votes, has to now rebuild a party that has consistently failed to win state elections (the slim 2018 verdict being the only exception) since 2003 and performed poorly in successive Lok Sabha polls.

As a leader from the backward classes and one with some influence among both youth and farmers in the state’s Malwa region — the same region that BJP’s newly appointed CM Mohan Yadav hails from — Patwari fits into the political narrative that his party is trying to build currently — that of OBC emancipation through a caste census and of addressing concerns of the unemployed and the financially distressed farmers. Additionally, Patwari not only enjoys a comfortable rapport with former Congress chief Rahul Gandhi — which is learnt to have swung the role in his favour — but is among the few party leaders in the state not affiliated with any factional chief despite enjoying cordial relations with all of them.

These credentials hold Patwari in stark contrast to Singhar. The Gandhwani MLA may be a fierce BJP opponent and a prominent tribal face of the party with ties to several central Congress leaders, but his equations with party seniors in the state, particularly with Digvijaya Singh, are at best frosty. As LoP, Singhar will have to lead the party’s charge against the BJP, and while this is something he is adept at, his new role would require him to also carry his party MLAs along, which may not be as easy.

Singhar has tried to bury the hatchet with Digvijaya in recent weeks, even offering a public apology to the former two-term CM recently for “any offence that my past comments may have caused”. Whether this would be enough for Singhar to win over Digvijaya, and the two dozen MLAs loyal to him, remains to be seen. After all, the acrimonious relationship between Digvijaya and Singhar has its own history. Singhar’s aunt, the late Jamuna Devi, who served as deputy chief minister of undivided Madhya Pradesh was a lifelong critic of Digvijaya.

With an OBC party chief, a tribal LoP, and a Brahmin deputy CLP leader, the Congress leadership has tried to balance caste representation but has, at the same time, failed to address the aspirations of regional representation. Patwari and Singhar both hail from the Malwa region, while Katare comes from the Chambal division. Sources say the central leadership and Patwari may soon effect an organisational overhaul in the state unit to ensure healthy representation from important regions like Vindhya and Mahakaushal, which have drawn a blank in the new appointments.

Experience over fresh blood in Chhattisgarh

While the appointments in the state do suggest some daring changes by the party high command, the same cannot be said about Chhattisgarh. Though former CM Bhupesh Baghel, whose overconfidence and resultant complacency are being touted within the party as a major cause for the BJP’s win, has not been accommodated in any new role, sources say this is because the party wants to rope him into a larger role at the central level.

By picking Charan Das Mahant — a former Speaker of the Chhattisgarh Assembly, a former Union minister, and the longest serving chief of the party’s state unit — as the new CLP leader, the Congress has opted for experience over fresh blood while sticking to the narrative of bolstering OBC leadership. However, while Mahant rose up the party’s ranks as a student politics leader four decades ago to a multiple-term MP and MLA, he is not known to be an aggressive street fighter.

In a state where the party has two predominant factions, led by Bhupesh Baghel and former deputy CM TS Singh Deo, Mahant is somewhat of a compromise choice. With Singh Deo losing the polls and Baghel in line for an elevation to the AICC, Mahant was an easy choice for the party to make while choosing the CLP chief but whether he is also an effective choice will depend on how assertive he is in countering the BJP.

With barely four months left before the Lok Sabha poll campaign gets underway, the Congress has its toughest task cut out in the Hindi heartland, where the BJP is obviously still on an ascendant. With limited time, a crunch of resources and no dearth of internal squabble, can the party’s new commanders in MP and Chhattisgarh deliver?