Ghulam Nabi Azad has quit the Congress after making public a devastating letter that has some home truths in it, even though officially, the Congress (or what remains of the party around the high command) have hit back, saying the veteran has been Modi-fied. In that context, it would be prudent to understand that the former Jammu and Kashmir chief minister, would have a hand to play in whatever deep state backed moves are made in Jammu and Kashmir, but more on that later.
So, Azad may have seized a moment to move on, but let there be no doubt that there is in that long and epic letter a painful account of the slow death dance of a party, although Azad was part of the processes of decline until he chose not to be there any longer. Death by delay could be the headline. Since 2019, when Rahul Gandhi walked away from the presidency of the party, he has reportedly been working through his options. Three years have gone by, and we are heading towards the general election of 2024, and the story, in brief, is that he does not want to be president, but believes that anyone but him will also ultimately get sold out or go over to the RSS/BJP. Therefore, Rahul wants to anoint a president while he makes a journey to unite India, apparently with the help of some NGOs and the Congress structures in the south from where this journey sensibly starts as the party still has some structures there.
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Hopefully, Rahul Gandhi will not take breaks and depart from India in the midst of seeking to unite the country, a laudable goal. For it has undoubtedly been a 'now you see me/now you don't' situation with him. But as his philosophical and personal dilemmas have played out, the party has been in freefall in state after state in the last few years, a process accelerated by a ruthless BJP regime that has toppled several Congress regimes. But beyond the central mess in the Congress, where the leadership is apparently still pondering even as unemployed Congress fixtures are smarting after being denied the perks of power (there are such few perks left to go around), the most pragmatic approach would be to keep our eyes fixed on the bases that are left.
The sensible part of the plan borne out of the crisis is possibly the choice of Rajasthan Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot as the chosen Congress president, although he is believed to be resisting the idea of moving out of Jaipur. But the reason why Gehlot works is not that he is a face that would capture the imagination of India's voters, but because the first family trusts him, and he has good equations with many of the veteran leaders who have been upset, so the expectation is that they could be less likely to challenge him than some of the other names that have been in circulation for the Congress president. And most significantly, getting Gehlot out of Jaipur would defuse the situation with Sachin Pilot, who was promised the chief minister-ship by the Gandhis and would have a year before the assembly polls to get the Congress house in order in one of the two states of India where the party is still in power, the other being Chhattisgarh. (At the end of 2023, assembly elections take place in Rajasthan, Chhattisgarh and Madhya Pradesh, all of which had been won by the Congress in late 2018, although Madhya Pradesh would be lost after a split and defections to the BJP).
Before that, elections in Gujarat and Himachal Pradesh take place where the Congress has been the traditional opposition to the BJP, and it would be interesting to see if there were still signs of life. The important base is Karnataka, which has assembly polls in the first half of 2023. Here the Congress is a more rooted and socially spread-out party, but the BJP is in power post defections. The BJP is keeping Hindu-Muslim issues alive and has its strongest bases in the coastal belt. The BJP's pragmatic national leadership has also made moves to appease the former CM and strongman B S Yediyurappa who has clout in his Lingayat community, although they were till recently trying to cut him to size.
Meanwhile, what next for Azad, a fixture in the Delhi political scene for decades? He has already announced intentions of forming a new party that would work in Jammu and Kashmir, of which he was once a chief minister. Jammu and Kashmir has been without an elected government for four years, and elections are expected sometime next year. In such a garrisoned region, Azad can be a pawn in the larger process of appearing to restore normalcy to the state, a scenario that New Delhi would like to choreograph.
Delimitation of constituencies, the change in the legal status of Jammu and Kashmir, and enrollment of new voters are all designed to keep the levers in the hands of New Delhi and thereby the BJP. Azad's own bases in Jammu have been hit by delimitation, but even as a small player, he could have a role as the BJP would like to restrict traditional parties of the Kashmir valley, the National Conference and the PDP, to the south and central Kashmir. It's also important to bear in mind that New Delhi will, in all likelihood, have elections in Jammu and Kashmir at a time when they think that, along with a few allies, they can control the narrative and the outcome.
It was a former Congress leader, also offended by Rahul Gandhi, who opened the gateways of the north-east to the BJP: current Assam chief minister Himanta Biswa Sarma has always had particular skills that proved useful in the tiny defection-prone states of that region. As for Azad, he is a veteran Delhi Durbari, trusted by the deep state, and the sort of Kashmiri figure that New Delhi could always have use for. He could certainly be one of the pawns in whatever chess game will be played in J&K. We know that the Indian Prime minister likes him and even shed a few tears while saying farewell to the former Congressman in the Indian parliament.
(Saba Naqvi is a journalist and author)
Disclaimer: The views expressed above are the author's own. They do not necessarily reflect the views of DH.