Putting off the D Day

Interim Congress president Sonia Gandhi has carried out a large scale reshuffle of party structures. The reshuffle coming just a few days before her trip to the United States for a medical check up creates space for a more thorough going reform of the ailing Congress sometime in the future.
Carrying a strong imprint of her son and former Congress president Rahul Gandhi, Sonia Gandhi’s reshuffle seeks to accommodate both the veterans and younger leaders at different levels.
Sonia Gandhi has reshuffled the party’s most crucial body, the CWC, Congress Working Committee, apart from creating two new structures to look after important things. One is a committee to advise on party elections while another committee is to aid the party president in running party affairs.
It is significant that the dissidents who recently wrote to the Congress president expressing concern at the drift in the party have been accommodated in the three committees, the CWC, the committee to hold party elections, and the committee to advise the party president.
Three of the 23 letter writers, Ghulam Nabi Azad, Anand Sharma and Mukul Wasnik continue as members of the Working Committee. Another dissident Arvinder Singh Lovely is on the committee to organise party elections. Jitin Prasada, another of the letter writers has been made incharge of party affairs in West Bengal on the eve of crucial State Assembly elections there.
There is no doubt that the Congress spirit of accommodative politics is on full display in the party reshuffle carried out by Sonia Gandhi. But will it revive the moribund Congress organisation? Will it make the party fighting fit to take on the ruling BJP led by the formidable and ruthless duo of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Home Minister Amit Shah?
Unless more fundamental and comprehensive steps follow, the party reshuffle carried out by Sonia Gandhi may not be enough to defeat or even take on the Narendra Modi-Amit Shah juggernaut.
The Congress is facing one of its worst crises in its long history and more thorough going steps are needed to revive the party. Free and fair organisational elections may just be the start of the process. Otherwise, the reshuffle may just amount to putting off the party’s complete eclipse, the D Day.

(Political Analyst)