Congress needs political ideas to mobilise voters around its ideological project

After the unexpected electoral setback in Haryana, the newly-acquired spring in the Congress’ step has given way to tears and bickering within. With the benefit of hindsight, this loss is being attributed to strategic failures (alliance management, candidate selection), linked to organisational atrophy of the grassroots base of Congress. Hubris, complacency, a failure to negotiate internal factions and consequent reliance on one party faction -- Hooda’s -- for election management, left the stamp of Jat dominance and opened the door, the argument goes, for the BJP to neutralise the Congress’ strategic advantage.

Yogendra Yadav points out, when it comes down to the wire, the BJPs ground game – micro-targeting of voters, polling booth management and last-minute voter mobilisation – the BJP has a significant advantage over the Congress, enabled, I would add, by the fusing of the RSS social organisation and the BJPs party organisation, enough to give the BJP a “2 per cent spike in every election.”

But I would argue that the organisational question is closely intertwined with the ideological one. What are the key ideological pivots and how does this translates into election narratives that enable grassroots party workers to build social coalitions and mobilise voters. This is particularly significant when the Congress confronts the BJPs organisational machine in head-to-head contests. Let us not forget that the BJP organisational machine works because it is glued together by the project of Hindutva and religious division. This is the binding logic that fuses the RSS and BJP worker on the ground, it motivates workers and enables them to shape narratives and mobilise voters.

If there is one corrective to the organisational argument, it is this -- a political party organisation cannot be built on strategic and tactical moves alone. Indeed the Congress was able to expand its base and increase its vote-share by a significant 11 per cent from 2019, with its weak organisation. Its challenge, as data journalists Roshan Kishore and Abhishek Jha point out, lies in its inability to consolidate its vote-share by attracting floating or undecided voters and forging broader coalitions. This is where ideology matters. The logic of a political party is not tactical; it requires a distinct ideological identity that translates into a set of issues around which workers can mobilise social coalitions and seek to bring the “floating” voter into its fold. This is not just about elections, but also about what happens between elections to keep workers and the party active and engaged.

The Congress’ broad umbrella coalition has long struggled with the ideological question, especially as the Mandir (Hindutva) and Mandal (caste and representational identity) emerged as the distinct ideological pivots of Indian politics in the 1990s. The Modi juggernaut, with its ability to use the Hindutva glue to stitch together cross-caste coalitions deepened the challenge for the Congress.

As Pradeep Chhibber and Rahul Verma write in their book, Ideology and Identity: Changing Party Systems in India, by 2014, the median voter shifted away from the Congress’ centrist plank, marking the end of Congress’ umbrella social coalition. It is unable to clearly distinguish itself from regional parties, who are better at representing regional and caste identities, and cannot respond sharply to Hindu polarisation. Indeed, by the Congress’ own assessment, it had now been painted as a “Muslim party”. This left it floundering on critical issues of secularism and minority rights, as it fell prey to the BJP charge of “appeasement” and vote-bank politics. For the bulk of the 10 years since 2014, the Congress looked confused on questions of secularism, inclusion, social justice.

The task of ideological re-invention began only with the Bharat Jodo Yatra and Rahul Gandhi’s emergence as a credible leader. By drawing on the grammar of inequality, social justice and constitutionalism, Rahul Gandhi sought to craft a distinct ideological pivot to the BJP. This was effective in tapping into the real disenchantment amongst voters with Modi and the BJP fuelled by everyday realities -- agrarian distress, unemployment, price rise -- in the 2024 general elections.

But there are two critical limitations, which became fatal for the party in Haryana. First, Rahul Gandhi has crafted himself as the party ideologue and leader, but he has separated himself from the organisational realities of the party. He is yet to take his party along to create ideological coherence. This makes managing factions difficult and building credibility with voters much harder. Indeed, the visible contradictions of Jat-dominance while deploying the language of social justice is testimony to this. The Congress “ideology” lacks credibility if its state leaders and workers don’t align.

But creating coherence within the party cadre is made harder by the fact that the ideological re-invention project is a slow, confused work-in-progress. For one, it pins its narrative on social justice and inequality within the framework of caste politics -- caste census and quotas -- but offers little by way of a constructive alternative economic vision.

On unemployment and agrarian distress, it raises the challenge but, quite like the BJP, offers little beyond cash transfer schemes. On constitutionalism and principles of secularism and minority rights, the Congress remains confused. It speaks against hate, and for tolerance. Rahul Gandhi through his speeches in Parliament appears to be crafting a new and potentially powerful vision for inclusivity and diversity via religious symbolism. But on the political project of Hindutva, it dodges direct confrontation. “Secularism” as a term has been mostly abandoned, and the Congress has no stated position on questions of Muslim representation, the Uniform Civil Code. Its silence on matters of everyday discrimination against Muslims is conspicuous.

Let us not forget that the ideological project of Hindutva mobilised voters around three concrete political ideas -- the Ram temple, Article 370, and Uniform Civil Code. What are the three concrete political ideas of the ideological project of the Congress’ social justice and constitutionalism around which voters can mobilise? This question must be answered first. Organisational strength, electoral strategy, and strong alliances will follow from this.