Congress revamp: Is it a Herculean task for Rahul Gandhi or will ad-hocism rule?

New Delhi: A deep sense of anguish prevails among Congress leaders and workers as the leadership has failed to take any steps to invigorate the party and its cadre following a series of unending electoral setbacks since the drubbing in the 2014 Lok Sabha polls.

The much-needed organisational reshuffle has been delayed perpetually with ad-hocism gripping the party.

While veteran Mallikarjun Kharge took over as the Congress president in October 2023, he has not been able to establish his writ due to the continued interference by party general secretary in-charge of organisation KC Venugopal who derives his immense power from Rahul Gandhi.

The Congress was expected to carry out the revamp after the 2024 Lok Sabha elections in which the party managed to restore some pride by winning 99 seats and enabled it to claim the post of the Leader of the Opposition (LoP) after ten years.

But nothing has moved since then and it seems business as usual. In the meantime, the party suffered further electoral slide with three back-to-back defeats in Haryana, Maharashtra and now Delhi.

As had happened several times in the past, the Congress formed a committee to look into the reasons for the poll setback in Haryana and it has been four months since the results were declared and no one knows what the findings of the panel. The accountability hasn't been fixed yet. The only fallout of the loss has been an offer of resignation by general secretary Deepak Babaria, a proven non-performer with a dismal track record. Why he continues to be a favourite of Rahul Gandhi is beyond anyone's comprehension.

Perhaps, the reason why his resignation offer is still pending with the party's high command.

Like Babaria, there are several other non-performer general secretaries and in-charges but continue to hold on to their posts with the blessings of Venugopal, the most powerful and influential leader in the party. In fact, Congress leaders claim that in recent memory, no one in the grand old party, not even the late Ahmed Patel, yielded such influence over the leadership.

Babaria is joined in the elite club by Avinash Pande, who as general secretary in-charge of Rajasthan, was instrumental in almost bringing down the Congress government in 2020.

His removal from the state was one of the pre-conditions of Sachin Pilot, who had led a revolt against the then chief minister Ashok Gehlot, to bury the hatchet and not leave the Congress.

He was subsequently shifted to Jharkhand where he riled Chief Minister Hemant Soren to such an extent that the alliance between the Congress and the Jharkhand Mukti Morcha (JMM) almost collapsed. As a reward, he was shifted to the politically crucial state of Uttar Pradesh.

Pande's unfinished agenda was attempted by his successor Ghulam Ahmed Mir in the 2024 assembly elections. But for the timely intervention of Rahul Gandhi, the alliance would have been over before the polls.

As a general secretary, Mir also holds the additional charge of West Bengal.

Similarly, general secretaries Deepa Dasmunsi (Kerala) and Jitendra Singh (Assam) too hold additional charge of Telangana and Madhya Pradesh respectively.

Prior to taking over the charge of Karnataka where he had a limited role except to play peacemaker between Chief Minister Siddaramaiah and his deputy DK Shivakumar, Randeep Singh Surjewala was in-charge of the media and publicity department and it is well-known in media circles that he had antagonised the journalists by deliberately misleading them on crucial occasions. Many journalists celebrated his removal from the department.

As far as his successor Jairam Ramesh is considered, the less said the better.

Coming to in-charges, a large number of Congress leaders envy A Chella Kumar and are keen to know about his claim to fame. For many years now, he has unsuccessfully and disastrously steered the party in many states.

At present, he handles Meghalaya, Mizoram and Arunachal Pradesh. Chella Kumar is in the august company of Devender Yadav, under whose leadership the Congress faced a rout in Uttarakhand in the 2022 assembly elections.

Instead of dropping him, the party shifted him to Punjab and then made him the Pradesh Congress Committee (PCC) chief in Delhi. The Congress again - for a third successive time -- failed to open its account in the national capital. Yadav, however, takes credit for a 2% increase in the Congress' vote share.

Similarly, Ajoy Kumar, who had left the Congress to join the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) before coming back to the grand old party, is holding the charge of Odisha with additional responsibilities of Tamil Nadu and Puducherry. He contested the 2024 Jharkhand assembly elections from Jamshedpur East and lost by over 42000 votes.

Then there are Mohan Prakash (Bihar), Ramesh Chennithala (Maharashtra), Rajiv Shukla (Himachal Pradesh), Girish Chodankar (Tripura, Sikkim, Manipur and Nagaland) and Bharatsinh Solanki (Jammu and Kashmir and Ladakh) and none of them has any achievement to show or talk about.

It took the Congress high command seven months to find the new state unit chief of Odisha. Sarat Pattanayak resigned as the Odisha Congress president in July last year following the poor show in the 2024 Lok Sabha and assembly elections.

On Tuesday, former union minister Bhakta Charan Das, another favourite of Rahul Gandhi and his team, was given the reins of the party's Odisha unit. Many state units too have been awaiting new chiefs for a long period now.

That said, it is high time Rahul Gandhi and his team discard the deadwood, and infuse fresh blood and new ideas in the grand old party to make the Congress fighting fit and capable of taking on the mighty BJP.