'INDIA Alliance Is Dead'

'Congress needs a positive agenda rather than primarily picking up on two business houses.'

"The birth of political alliances are announced with great fanfare, but death is a mere footnote. Just look at what happened to the Janata Party, National Front, United Front and even the UPA," says Rasheed Kidwai, the well-known political copmmentator and India's best-known expert on the Congress party and its politics.

"Alliances are made from a position of strength and are opportunistic. The Congress needs to show some wins to be of interest to other parties. There are no takers for losers," Mr. Kidwai tells Rediff's Archana Masih in the concluding part of the interview.

• Part 1 of the Interview: 'Rahul needs to project something positive'

Has the Congress shrunk to being relevant only in Southern India, while almost fading in the north and north east?

Any electoral success is welcoming for a political party.

The Congress has three chief ministers in south India -- Revanth Reddy [Telangana], Siddaramaiah [Karnataka] and V D Satheesan [Keralam]. They are all well-grounded, rooted in society and have not been centrally appointed.

This is a good testimonial. Vijay also, in a sense, is a Congress ally.

Beyond these states, the Congress has very little presence in other states.

In the north, it is in power in Himachal Pradesh and might not return to power.

The south sends 130 MPs to Parliament -- if the Congress can sell its good governance model in the states it currently governs, it could potentially get 85-90 seats which would provide a good cushion. There are other states where the Congress is the number two party.

I always say that the only state with 96% Hindu population -- Himachal Pradesh -- is with the Congress.

The party needs to get to work in Uttarakhand and Punjab which go to the polls next year if it wants a shot at wresting power. There's a lot of churning going on in Bengal. The Congress can make a bid for that space with the decline of Mamata Banerjee.

The party has no footprint in Odisha or Andhra Pradesh. These realities should disturb Rahul Gandhi rather than initiatives like minority conventions and outreach programmes.

How can the Congress provide a new, repackaged version of its secular-pluralistic ideology to be more relevant?

There is no mantra. The Congress needs to return to the back-to-basics approach in terms of organisational hierarchy, adhering to the party's constitution etc.

There are just too many exceptions, too many liberties being taken. For example, the Congress president seems more eager to assume the role of leader of the Opposition in the Rajya Sabha. He is doing it informally, no doubt, but in a 'one man, one post' system -- the party president appears to be flouting that norm.

The Congress suffers from weak internal democracy. We have seen what happened with the choice of chief minister in Kerala. Karnataka also has two faces for the top job which was the reason for the Congress losing power in Madhya Pradesh.

Just visualise if Jyotiraditya Scindia was the chief minister of Madhya Pradesh and Sachin Pilot CM of Rajasthan, perhaps things would have been different and the Congress would have been in power in both states, or at least in one.

You mentioned earlier that urban constituencies had voted for Dr Manmohan Singh when he secured a second tenure as PM. Why has the middle class, urban India drifted away from the Congress? Has the Congress lost this constituency?

To say that the party has lost the middle class would be an exaggeration.

Look at the statistics of the last three elections that the Congress lost.

In 2014, it won 44 seats.

In 2019, it won 52 seats; and 99 seats in 2024.

It is significant to note that the Congress came second in around 264-268 seats in these three elections.

In the current political landscape after the defeat of Trinamool in Bengal, BJD in Odisha and the situation in Punjab, that figure has increased to around 340.

The Congress could emerge in the number two position in nearly 340 seats in the 2029 election. If it manages to improve its strike rate by even 40%, it will be back in business - and can potentially prevent the BJP from coming to power.

Since we follow a first-past-the-post system, a candidate with 49 votes will lose to one with 51. If they have the potential of securing just two more votes, they can we declared winner -- so that is the Congress story.

Why has the Congress been unable to sell their story -- and more importantly why hasn't it found takers for that story?

The Congress was the architect of liberalisation. Dr Manmohan Singh was its visible face. There are many other faces that were part of that story and can sell that story -- Sachin Pilot, D K Shivakumar, P Chidambaram etc -- there is a person like that in every state who can tell the Congress' success story.

The middle class bought cars, microwaves, washing machines etc and benefited from the Congress' economic policies, but there is no claimant, no ownership.

The Congress is seen as a left-leaning party, even though leftism is not in its DNA the way secularism and pluralism are. Nehru was not a leftist or a socialist; he had a mixed economy model. He understood that distinction and so did both Indira Gandhi and Rajiv Gandhi.

The Congress needs to reconnect with its core principles and return to basics. They need a positive agenda rather than primarily picking up on two business houses. It may be good political rhetoric, but the party needs to do far more.

The business houses are large contributors to GDP, employment and economic growth. You cannot constantly make them look like sinners.

Rahul Gandhi is not seen as a 24x7 politician focussed on electoral arithmetic, instead he seems more interested in the larger themes and yatras than day-to-day rigour of winning elections.

The Congress is sitting over significant assets. For example, Priyanka Gandhi is the MP from Wayanad and party general secretary, but has no assigned role.

Similarly, the party has not utilised the capability of Shashi Tharoor effectively. These are examples of Rahul Gandhi's failings.

Rahul spends a lot of time and energy in criticising the media. The media is not a monolithic entity. Every state has substantive media, at least in the print platform which is critical of the government.

In Mr Modi's home state, Gujarat Samachar is very critical of the PM, so the Congress cannot say that media is uniformly against it.

In fact, ideally the media should not be aligned with any political party.

The Congress needs to engage with the media. I concede that a section of the media is very hostile and is referred to as 'Godi media', but, despite that there is a lot of scope for constructive engagement.

The Emergency, Bofors or India against Corruption agitations were all against the ruling party -- the Congress. There was a lot of synergy between the Opposition and the media.

During V P Singh's campaign on Bofors, it was actually the media which broke the news that bribes had been paid.

The media has been very active in dislodging incumbent governments, whereas since 2014, the media and ruling party or ruling coalitions have come together against the Opposition.

Rahul is sitting over a huge pool of talent in the Congress which is not being harnessed.

Rahul Gandhi needs to ponder and reinvent.

You spoke about perception. The BJP has branded the Congress as a party that caters primarily to minorities.

Firstly, this narrative needs to be countered because it is against the grain of democracy and Constitution.

Both in terms of Constitutional democracy and decency, this needs to be questioned and countered.

In all democracies, communities tend to vote for a particular party or not and that's a complex relationship.

If the Sikh majority in Punjab are voting for the Akali Dal, or Christians in the North East are voting for a particular political party, there's nothing wrong in it.

The Congress should not be defensive.

From 1952-1977, the Congress was getting majority votes of the majority community -- and it continued so after that also. The BJP, as I mentioned before, does not get more than 50% votes of the majority community.

This perception has to be broken because no constituency in our country is 100% Muslim or Hindu -- and both communities vote for different parties.

With the post-May 4 results, what do you see as the future of the INDIA alliance?

The INDIA alliance is dead.

Alliances are made in India for government formation. INDIA was formed before the 2024 general election. The birth of political alliances are announced with great fanfare, but death is a mere footnote. Just look at what happened to the Janata Party, National Front, United Front and even the UPA.

Alliances are made from a position of strength and are opportunistic. These are the features of alliance politics. The Congress needs to show some wins to be of interest to other parties. There are no takers for losers.