Recently I came across a tweet by Congress leader Sanjay Jha which read “Dear Fellow Congress friends, We are a party of Mahatma Gandhi, Pundit Nehru, Sardar Patel, Netaji Bose, Shastri Ji, Maulana Azad, and several brave stalwarts. #DaroMat we drove the oppressive British out, These cowards are ciphers.”
This tweet was in the context of P Chidambaram’s late-night arrest. However, my point here is not on the context, rather on the content (of the tweet). The content says that the present Congress party is the old Congress party which fought in the freedom struggle, and Mahatma Gandhi, Nehru, Shastri, Patel, Netaji Bose Azad, etc were a part of it. Not only Sanjay Jha but also many present-day Congress members refer to their party as the party which bought independence to India from the British through the freedom struggle. Is that claim true? Let’s check through historical and documented facts.
The Indian National Congress (INC) which fought in the freedom struggle contested elections since the first Lok Sabha election in 1952 with the election symbol of ‘A pair of Bullock carrying a Yoke’. In 1969, the INC split, post the expelling of Indira Gandhi by then Congress President S Nijalingappa on the behest of the group of veteran Congressmen called ‘Syndicate‘ led by K.Kamaraj.
Indira Gandhi’s fraction called Congress (R) (R stands for Requisition) and the ‘original’ Congress called Congress (O) (O stands for Organisation). Congress-R came to be called the ‘New’ Congress whereas Congress-O was called the ‘Old’ Congress. Then, the Election Commissioner recognised K. Kamraj-led Congress (O) as the ‘original’ Congress, thus they deleted the suffix ‘O’ and retained the name of the Indian National Congress along with INC’s original election symbol ‘a pair of bullocks carrying a yoke’. Indira Gandhi-led Congress (R) got the election symbol ‘Cow with suckling calf’.
In the 1971 general election, Indira Gandhi-led Congress (R) got 352 seats with 43.68% vote share and the ‘old’ Congress or INC, as recognised by the ECI, contested with the original INC electoral symbol was decimated with just 16 seats and 10.43% vote share.
In the 1977 general election, the ‘old’ Congress holding the original Congress’s election symbol merged with the newly formed Janata Party founded by Jay Prakash Narayan. With this merger the official/old Congress (Indian National Congress) became extinct and the original election symbol of INC, frozen forever. That means that the ‘original Congress’ which represented leaders as per Sanjay Jha’s tweet ended in 1977 itself.
The 1977 election debacle of Congress (R) resulted in two camps. One with Indira Gandhi and others including Jagajjivan Ram against Indira Gandhi. On 2nd January 1978, Indira Gandhi seceded from Congress (R) and formed again a new party called Congress (I) (‘I’ stands for Indira). Then the ECI froze the symbol of ‘cow with suckling calf and recognised the two fractions as two new parties, with neither inheriting Congress (R) and its symbol. Thus, the Congress (R) formed by Indira Gandhi also became defunct with the formation of the new party Congress(I)
Then Indira Gandhi selected the ‘Hand’ as an electoral symbol since the 1980 elections and the present party continues to contest with the same electoral symbol of Hand. In 1996, Congress applied to be renamed as Indian National Congress removing the suffix ‘I’. As there was no more claimant nor anyone to dispute it, the ECI agreed for the name change but didn’t give the original electoral symbol. This shows that this party doesn’t inherit the original/Old Congress because it couldn’t inherit the original electoral symbol of INC that fought in the freedom struggle.
Thus, the present Congress party, although named as Indian National Congress, is in fact that ‘new’ Congress under Indira Gandhi. Then the party became dynastic too as the leadership mantle transferred to Rajiv Gandhi, Sonia Gandhi, and Rahul Gandhi. I would say PVN Rao and Sitaram Kesari were just presidents in the period when Sonia Gandhi decided not to join active politics post-Rajiv Gandhi’s assassination. But then all the party members were loyal to the family. The moment Sonia Gandhi decided to enter politics, Sitaram Kesari was booted out.
The original Congress or old Congress inherited by Congress (O) in fact merged with the Janata Party. Thus, before claiming the present congress party as the old Congress, I think it’s simply a false statement and applicable for those who perhaps don’t know this history.
There were many breakaway groups created from the Janata Party such as the BJP, Janata Dal and Lok Dal, and then Janata Dal and Lok Dal were further divided and subdivided. However, the Janata Party was functioning until 2013 under the leadership of Subramanyam Swami. On 11th August 2013, Janata Party finally merged with the Bharatiya Janata Party and it’s electoral symbol ‘Chakra Haladhar’ was frozen.
Now on a hypothetical note, the BJP can claim that it’s the true heir of Jay Prakash Narayan-led Janata Party as that party merged into BJP. Also, the BJP can claim it is the true heir of the Indian National Congress which included Mahatma Gandhi, Nehru, Patel, Shastri, etc because the original Congress (inherited by ‘old’ Congress) merged with the Janata Party, and the Janata party has again merged with the BJP. Confused? Don’t worry, we can ask those parties if they inherit the original electoral symbol of the party whose legacy they claim to inherit!
The bottom line is that at present, no party inherits those parties which were a part of the independence struggle. A New Congress was formed under Indira Gandhi and that Congress remained loyal to her family to date. Thus, claiming it as old or original congress is illogical. Similarly, although the Janata Party merged with the BJP, it can’t claim to be an heir of Lok Nayak Jay Prakash’s legacy. In fact, no Janata Parivar can claim to be the heir to the legacy of Jay Prakash Narayan. All such parties were formed later, divided and merged just to wrest political power. Thus, all these post-independence new parties, although formed their ideology, but in practice, the only aim is to wrest political power and rule the country.
No party should claim the legacy of our tall leaders like Nehru, Patel, Jay Prakash, Shastri or Maulana Azad. They were great people and no present party is really qualified to carry their legacy.