NEW DELHI: The Congress has once again crushed dissidence with an “iron hand.” The expulsion of Odisha leader and former MLA Mohammed Moquim, after he went public about a letter he had written to Sonia Gandhi against the party leadership, was a given. The fact that the Congress justified its action and accused Moquim of operating with “BJP mindset” and working for the “interests of the saffron party” was also not a surprise.We have seen the grand-old-party go through this drill many times in the last 11 years as its political fortunes declined across the states. Several Congress leaders, both at the national level and at the state level, have openly targeted the top leadership and faced action. We all remember the group of 23 Congress leaders (G-23) who had in 2020 written a letter to Sonia Gandhi demanding “collective and inclusive leadership” in the party.
While some of these dissidents were expelled, others voluntarily left the party but nothing changed in the way Congress functioned.
This time, while the Congress may be perhaps right in questioning the intent of Mohammed Moquin, it would do well by not ignoring the message of the former MLA-turned-rebel by labelling him a BJP stooge. “Giving a letter to Sonia ji is acceptable, but releasing it to the press is not. This clearly indicates that he does not want to stay in the Congress,” Odisha Congress chief Bhakta Charan Das said justifying the party action.
Ironically, Bhakta Charan Das was one of the targets of Moquim’s letter. The expelled MLA had questioned Das’s appointment as state party chief and his capability to deliver results in the state citing his past electoral performance. Moquim’s other targets were Rahul Gandhi and party chief
.So, what was Moquim’s communication? Here are some of the stinging statements that Moquim made in his letter: Well, a lot of what Moquim said in his letter have been raised before by many leaders who have parted ways with the grand old party in the past.
Ironically, his remarks against the national leadership, especially on Rahul Gandhi’s inaccessibility and Kharge’s age, masked his pointed attacks on the party’s leadership in Odisha.Moquim highlighted the fact that the Congress had lost 6 consecutive elections in Odisha and expressed concern over the party's recent electoral performance in the Nuapada by-elections, where BJP defeated Congress by a huge margin despite the fact that Nuapada fell under the constituency of the present state Congress chief.“Under the leadership of Das, in the Nuapada by-election, his own parliamentary segment, the Congress lost by an unprecedented margin of nearly 83,000 votes. When a leader cannot secure trust in his own constituency, workers naturally lose confidence in his leadership and raise concerns in his ability to guide the party in Odisha,” the former MLA wrote in his letter.He also pointed out the failures of the Bhakta Charan Das’s predecessor Sarat Pattanayak: “Having lost six consecutive Lok Sabha elections, sometimes forfeiting his deposit, his appointment weakened morale at all levels.
Under his leadership, the 2024 elections witnessed the lowest vote share in our history — just 13%. He again lost his own election, once more forfeiting his deposit,” he wrote questioning the party’s decision to appoint state chiefs who could not secure their own victories.Odisha, like many other states, has seen the Congress gradually decline to oblivion. The last time Congress won in Odisha was in 1995. Since then, it has been a story of decline.
In 2000 it won 26 seats, 38 in 2004, 27 in 2009 and 10 in 2014. In 2019, the Congress tally in Odisha was reduced to single-digit 9 seats and could win 14 in 2024. The grand-old-party that ruled Odisha for several years, first ceded space to regional party Biju Janata Dal and then to the BJP - a story which has defined its existence in the last 10 years.
The Congress has remained on the sidelines - doing little to revive the party’s lost glory in the state.
The Congress in Odisha at present is perhaps in no position to challenge the ruling BJP. However, if the grand-old-party makes a sincere effort, it could make forays into the support base of the BJD, which took an unprecedented beating in the 2024 assembly elections and now depends heavily on an aging Naveen Patnaik for its revival. Unfortunately, there seems to be no Congress roadmap for revival. The state leadership could do better than holding protests over the court order on National Herald case if they want to pose any real challenge to the BJP or the BJD.The story of Congress decline is similar in several other states where the grand-old-party was first relegated to the sidelines by regional parties and then decimated to oblivion by the BJP. In Bihar, West Bengal, the Congress is struggling to stay relevant in electoral politics while the BJP has successfully made deep inroads.While Moquim is dumped, the Congress should not dump his message. The points raised by him merits attention - if the Congress hopes to revive.
