Why Congress bureaucracy prefers Kharge over Tharoor
Kharge being elected president means Congress’s frigid bureaucracy will last at least till 2024
Had Shashi Tharoor been contesting for party leadership in a Western country, he might have fared better. The problem for him was that the election for the Congress president is very different from say a primary contest for the Democratic Party in the US, as it is not really decided by the general membership of the party. It’s more akin to the election of a chieftain of a grand khap panchayat. So the election result was clear by nomination day, when the elders of the various influential Congress clans publicly coalesced around his rival Mallikarjun Kharge.
This is not to say that the ratification from below – voting of the delegates – was tampered with. Only, the nature of patronage distribution ensures that not many PCC delegates would have been willing to go against the nominee blessed by their leadership. The root of Congress’s problems lies with the party’s bureaucratic frigidity.
This is not to say that the ratification from below – voting of the delegates – was tampered with. Only, the nature of patronage distribution ensures that not many PCC delegates would have been willing to go against the nominee blessed by their leadership. The root of Congress’s problems lies with the party’s bureaucratic frigidity.
