A presidential election in a political party should ideally be a mundane affair. But this would not be the case if the party happens to be the Congress. Thus, the contest to elect the Congress president for which voting took place yesterday was far from a quiet affair. The reasons are not far to seek. After all, India’s Grand Old Party was witnessing a presidential election after over two decades. Eyebrows have also been raised for another reason. The Gandhis — the Congress’s First Family — were officially not in the fray: the two gladiators in the arena, so to speak, were Mallikarjun Kharge and Shashi Tharoor. Yet, the veneer of ‘inner democracy’ in the Congress is unlikely to stick. The shadow of the Gandhis over Mr Kharge is believed to be rather long even though they have not endorsed him as their favoured candidate. In fact, Mr Tharoor, unable to create a splash within the Congress’s electoral college, has alleged that the pitch had been queered. This was an attempt on Mr Tharoor’s part to hint that Mr Kharge’s candidacy had the approval of the powers that be. There has never been any doubt about the party’s symbiotic relationship with the Gandhis. In fact, Rahul Gandhi, whose Bharat Jodo Yatra seems to have created ripples in the political pond, would have been the most acceptable face as party president. His reluctance to take on the post and run the party through a proxy is mysterious. The Bharatiya Janata Party would have certainly liked to poke fun at its rival on this count had it not been for its regimental structure. An outfit that is effectively a dyarchy cannot wax eloquent on inner party democracy.

The new Congress president would have his task cut out. The party organisation, riven with rivalry and blunted by defection, needs to be resuscitated. The Congress’s electoral footprint has to be revived and strategic alliances with other parties stitched to make the Opposition a credible force in the next general election. Most importantly, the Congress must be able to make the foundational values of the republic — pluralism, accommodation, harmony — acceptable to an India that has remained enchanted with the rhetoric of division in the last few years. Each of this is a formidable task. Another Herculean assignment for the president would be to keep the Congress united. Calls for uniting the nation by a party that is beset with factionalism is an irony, to say the least.