Is Congress Working Committee the new rehabilitation centre in GOP?

New Delhi: The newly constituted Congress Working Committee (CWC) appears to have turned into a rehabilitation centre as some of those who had significantly contributed to the decline of the grand old party have been brought back into the so-called highest decision-making body.  

Take for example Mohan Prakash, BK Hariprasad, Charanjit Singh Channi, Harish Rawat, M Veerappa Moily, Girish Raya Chodankar and Ashok Chavan, all of them were responsible for the downfall of the Congress in many states. 

As an in-charge first and later a general secretary, Mohan Prakash looked after Jammu and Kashmir, Maharashtra, Gujarat and Madhya Pradesh and in all these states the performance of the Congress during his tenure is not hidden from anyone. Similar is the case with Hariprasad. The Congress failed miserably when he was in-charge of Odisha, Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh and Jharkhand. 

Channi had replaced Captain Amarinder Singh as the Punjab chief minister and his appointment was described as a masterstroke. But he ended up being a disaster as the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) swept the elections in 2022 with the Congress barely managing to take the distant second place. 

Rawat single-handedly presided over the decimation of the Congress in Uttarakhand where the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) comfortably retained power in the 2022 elections. Till then, it was a cyclic state with the power rotating between the Congress and the BJP. 

With Chavan at the helm, the Congress was pushed to the fourth position in Maharashtra where it had been in power for three consecutive terms from 1999 to 2014. Similarly, Chodankar's tenure saw a massive exodus in the Goa Congress and a second term for the BJP in 2022.  

Moily had been a minister in the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government and his tenure was nothing to write home about.  

Though Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge has brought in many fresh faces, the choice of inductees hasn't added freshness to the country's oldest political party.  

While there is a possibility of some in-charges of states being retained in the upcoming reshuffle, Kharge should carefully consider their performances after taking an independent assessment of their performances.  

Punjab in-charge Harish Chaudhary is accused of destroying the party in the border state. There were allegations of irregularities against him during the ticket distribution in the 2022 polls and the Congress under him registered one of its worst electoral defeats.  

Though the Congress won Himachal Pradesh, party in-charge Rajeev Shukla had no role to play in the victory. The people of the hill state had decided to oust the BJP and bring back the Congress. Shukla's continued interference in the state administration was said to be the biggest stumbling block in governance matters. 

While Devender Yadav failed to bring back the party to power in Uttarakhand despite a strong anti-incumbency against the BJP, the Congress has deteriorated further in states under the charge of Manish Chatrath, Bhakta Charan Das, A Chella Kumar and Ajoy Kumar.  

While Kharge has managed to accommodate people from almost every state in the country, he could not implement another key provision of the Udaipur declaration - giving 50% representation to those under 50 years. Earlier, the 'one-man one-post' and 'not more than five years on one post' norms envisaged in the Udaipur declaration had been thrown to the wind.