Can't blame the Gandhis for Congress' election debacle: Chidambaram

Senior Congress leader P Chidambaram today backed the Gandhis and said they cannot be held responsible for the party’s recent election debacle. At the earliest, the election for the new Congress president will happen only in August and till then the Congress believes that Sonia Gandhi will be leading the charge, he said.

A day after the meeting of the Congress “G-23″ leaders, Chidambaram also cautioned the rebel group not to split the party. G-23 leaders like Kapil Sibal have been openly demanding that the Gandhis should make way for a new leadership to enable the revival of the grand old party.

Chidambaram told a prominent national TV channel that Sonia Gandhi, along with Rahul Gandhi and Priyanka Gandhi Vadra, had offered to step down at the Congress Working Committee (CWC)’s election post-mortem meeting on Sunday (March 13) but it was not accepted by the CWC.

“So, what is our option now? We need to speed up the process to elect a new Congress president. But the earliest that can happen is August. But what do we do between now and August? Till then we, including me, believe that Mrs Gandhi is leading the charge,” reiterated Chidambaram.

Moreover, Sonia Gandhi had offered to advance the election but the leaders had turned it down. The Gandhis also did accept responsibility, like he had done for Goa, and others did for the other states, the senior Congress leader pointed out.

Further, Chidambaram told NDTV that nobody is running away from responsibility. But all the leaders at the block, district, state and AICC (All India Congress Committee) level need to take responsibility as well, he said. “It is not enough to say that the AICC leadership is responsible,” he said.

Also read: Congress close to implosion; will Sonia-Azad meet resolve issues?

After the Congress lost the elections in five states, ending up being in power only in two states in the country, the CWC post-mortem turned out to be a big disappointment. The CWC issued an all-too familiar statement reposing faith in Sonia Gandhi’s leadership, without taking any drastic steps.

Chidambaran questioned the need for drastic changes since elections was to be held in three months to revive the party. He asked pertinently, whether the Congress should pick an interim president to replace an interim president (Sonia Gandhi) for three months? He was confident that they will have a full-time leadership in August.

But between now and August, the party needed to embark on necessary and comprehensive reforms which is already being done by Sonia Gandhi, he said.

Meanwhile, the rebels have demanded a “bigger response” to the party’s miserable performance in the five states and have warned of “drastic steps” if that is not done. To which, Chidambaram said that he hoped that there will not be a split.

“My appeal to them is not to split the party. My appeal to them would be to go back to their constituencies and build the party. Everyone should go back and rebuild party units,” Chidambaram said. The Congress needed to make adjustments to take on the BJP in the 2024 elections, observed the former finance minister. Every party had to make adjustments, he said.

“This applies to Mamata Banerjee and Arvind Kejriwal as well. The fight will be state-by-state. In Bengal, we have to fight with Trinamool in the leadership. In Punjab, we have to fight with AAP as leader. If you fight the BJP state-by-state, it will be possible to defeat it,” he said.

According to Chidamabaram, the Congress’ major weakness is that currently there is no party in many states. The block committees need to be reconstituted and in various places, there were no natural leaders left and only workers existed, said Chidambaram. He gave the example of UP where the party has withered away over the years.

“We need to first rebuild the party then fight an election. I had cautioned the leadership, we cannot contest an election and rebuild the party at the same time,” he observed, adding that there are “serious deficiencies” like “organisational weaknesses” in the party, which he and others like Kapil Sibal and Ghulam Nabi Azad have pointed out.

Congress needed to identify leaders who had a passion for politics and a passion to win elections, he said. They required 24/7 office-bearers, which, could be only done by “people in their 40s, 50s and 60s”. And, to be full-time functionaries the party needed funds to support them in their posts.