Election 2019: Has The Congress Presented Itself As A Compelling Alternative?

After winning the heartland states from the Bharatiya Janata Party, the Congress expected to put up a better fight in this general election. The party, which was decimated in 2014, even guaranteed an income of at least Rs 72,000 a year for the poor. But going by the exit polls, that hasn't helped the Congress prevent Prime Minister Narendra Modi from getting a second term.

The Congress has failed to live up to the challenge of presenting itself as a compelling opposition, according to senior journalist Tony Joseph. The Congress could have capitalised on the mistakes of the incumbent government, but its failure has a lot to with it being a family party, he told BloombergQuint during an interview. “It has not been able to grow out of it.”

Joseph said “democratising” the grand old party, which turned into a rather “personalised” party after former Prime Minister and Congress chief Indira Gandhi, may help it to revive its identity. “But the key to that door only lies with the Gandhi family as the Congress party faces a crisis of existence. The Congress has lost its natural instincts now.”

While Sadanand Dhume, Resident Fellow of American Enterprise Institute, agreed, he also said the Congress' fundamental challenge is having an incompetent leader. Unlike almost all its former supremos who were members of the Gandhi family, its current leader Rahul Gandhi is “not a very good politician”, Dhume said. “It is quite remarkable that the Congress party in its present form has survived this long.”

Gandhi's family has dominated the Congress and Indian politics since the nation's freedom from the British rule in 1947. But Gandhi himself has never held any government post. While his lack of experience has remained a point of contention, the party's recent victories in assembly elections in Karnataka and three Hindi heartland states may have worked in its favour.

James Crabtree, associate professor in practice at LKY School of Public Policy, said observers have rather misinterpreted signs of revival of the party after victories in state elections. The apparent headways aren't signs of health within the party, he said. “The Congress' modernisation project ahead of this Lok Sabha election hasn't met expectations under the Gandhis and the party will face a huge challenge ahead. The biggest problem is to renew the party institutionally or personally while having a single-family hold over it.”

Watch the full debate here: