Elections to 55 seats in the Rajya Sabha (RS) from 17 States are scheduled to be held on March 26. The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) holds 15 of the 55 seats, and it is estimated that it will retain 12 of them. The Congress holds 11 seats which could go down to nine. This round of elections is unlikely to alter the fortunes of the Centre, which has managed to pass legislation in the Rajya Sabha though it has no majority there, but it will have a bearing on the Congress’s plans for the future, assuming that it has some.
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The BJP has been shrewd in allotting its RS berths to a mix of organisational people and ideologues but never failing in making the most ruthless assessment of their utility. So much so that even RSS pracharaks Ram Madhav and P. Muralidhar Rao, deputed as general secretaries, have not been accommodated despite their legitimate claims, while several lesser known figures have made the cut. The uncompromising age bar set at 75 has also allowed the BJP to bring to the fore a new generation of lawmakers to the RS.
Lack of fresh thinking
On the other hand, the Congress has been rather aimless, if not outrightly beholden to vested interests in its distribution of RS tickets, historically. The names doing the rounds as potential Congress nominees for the handful of seats that it could secure are of old warhorses and dynasts — indicating no fresh thinking, if true. There are several things about the Congress that need to change urgently, but what is now on the table is the selection of RS nominees.
Ideally, the Upper House contingent of any party must be a mix of experts who do not have the skillset and time to nurture a Lok Sabha constituency but can make critical contributions to legislative discussions and policymaking in general and organisational talents who should not be bound to a particular constituency but freed up for a wider political function. So, it might be justifiable that Manmohan Singh, P. Chidambaram and Jairam Ramesh get a berth in the Upper House, but unfathomable that Motilal Vora, 92 and barely able to walk, is being considered for renomination yet again. In fact, the Congress’s leadership has been reduced to a group of those who cannot walk, and those who do not walk because they don’t need to due to their privileged status as inheritors of power and wealth. Pushed to the margins by anti-elite mobilisations of various hues, the Congress has no option but to respond to popular sentiment and turn younger, diverse and dynamic.
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Being able to walk the talk
It is now clear that the Congress cannot grow without reviving its fortunes in U.P. and Bihar, two States that elect 120 members to the Lok Sabha. Unless the party has a strategy for the heartland, now totally captured by the BJP, its future is bleak and the gains made in Rajasthan, Chhattisgarh and Madhya Pradesh in 2018 could soon be lost. The party would do well to take into account a roadmap for the heartland while drawing up its list for the Rajya Sabha.
The Congress party, even in its current scrawny phase, has an array of leaders with the capacity to work hard and who are connected to the ground. But they are always demoralised and ignored. Positions of power have been shared among a select few in the social and economic elite. The Congress needs to signal to the middle rungs of the party that effort, commitment and capacity will be valued and rewarded. Seniors who were effective and inspiring at one point must acknowledge the fact that they cannot do that anymore. It is a law of nature, but in the current phase, also a character of politics that has become highly competitive and unforgiving. Nominating those who can and are willing to walk, from among the party’s own rank and file, will go a long way in raising hopes for the Congress in this season of despair.
varghese.g@thehindu.co.in
