After so long efforts by the brave and dedicated Congressmen and Congresswomen, two big liabilities (and burdens) who were pulling the Congress down were dumped.
- 26th Oct 2022: Khadgeji becomes president of Congress.
- 24th Mar 2023: Rahul Gandhi is disqualified as Member of Parliament.
Congress Party did receive some support from BJP, but without the hard work, perseverance and fortitude of the brave Congressmen and Congresswomen the above would have been impossible.
Now the liability is gone it is important that Congress is revived. Lets discuss some ideas.
The Gandhis (starting from Indira Gandhi) were hell bent to create a dynastic system which I would call “Federal Dynastic System”.
What is Federal Dynastic System?
In simple words, Gandhi dynasty rules at Center, other dynasties rule the states. They will keep cursing each other, but operate with a tacit secret understanding.
Why did the Federal Dynastic System collapse?
This happened due to 2 reasons.
First, The help from within the congress cannot be understated. Our Legendary PM Narsimha Rao realized that Federal Dynastic System is dangerous for India’s long term survival. Hence during his tenure he let BJP grow to become a formidable force.
Second, BJP itself struggled hard and with the efforts from many great leaders, BJP has now become a formidable force.
What was the side effect of the collapse of the Federal Dynastic System?
Since, the various dynastic regional parties had created their own vote banks, and BJP took away ~40% of the popular vote share, Congress was left with just ~20% vote share. The dynastic regional parties now have ~40% vote share.
What should Congress now do to revive?
Lets do a simple math:
BJP = 40% of votes.
Congress = 20% of votes.
Dynastic regional parties = 40% of votes.
If congress needs to come to power, it needs another 20% of votes. It cannot (and should not even try to) take BJP’s vote bank. That has to come from the vote banks of Dynastic regional parties and all Dynastic regional parties must be destroyed. Only democratic regional parties should survive.
Now comes the question, how to destroy the dynastic regional parties? I propose the following:
- Tenth Schedule of Indian Constitution: The tenth schedule was proposed to be an anti-defection law. But in reality it is the main culprit in protecting the nepo-dynasts. We need changes there. Please refer here.
- Impose a time limit on how long a person can hold high posts: Just as in US, limit the time period a person can remain a PM or CM or President or Governor to 10 years or a maximum of 15 years by changing the constitution. This will force the dynastic leaders to find their replacements.
- Make a law to regulate the political parties: A law should be made to regulate the political parties. The law should be based on the below outlines:
- Election Commission of India shall be the regulatorily authority of the political parties.
- A law shall be made to define the process of appointment of election commissioners. The Govt. should not have sole power to appoint the election commissioners.
- Every political party must have a written constitution.
- There should be a strong limit on the number of terms of the major office bearers.
- There should be a provision of amendment of the Party’s constitution.
- There should be a mechanism for Audit of the accounts of the parties.
- There should be mechanism for elections within political parties.
- Make a vicious campaign that the root cause of corruption is dynasty: Make slogans like “if you want to destroy corruption, for destroy the political families”. Openly challenge the dynastic parties to conduct elections.
- Jointly but secretly work with BJP to destroy the dynastic parties.
- Brahmastra: One nation, One Election. Read here.
India cannot be strong with the dynastic parties. We need democratic parties to have a strong democracy and remain strong.
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