[1024core]

LOL... I find your naivete ... saddening.

I grew up in India. I have seen first hand how shitty INC and the Gandhi family are.

Tell me something: why don't they have democracy in INC itself? Who made the Gandhi family the head of INC? Why isn't there any challenger to them? The last person who challenged them in a tiny fashion was Narasimha Rao, who was cast away like a leper and died unsung, even though he was an ex-PM of India.

[jimsimmons]

I also grew up in India. Parroting Indian history to justify the present is not how you move the country forward.

Republican Party was the party of Abraham Lincoln. Parties change through their life.

[alephnerd]

The Gandhi family (as in the clique surrounding them) does impact the INC negatively in the electoral field.

Himachal Pradesh - the state a significant portion of my family is from - only got the INC in 2022 because the party grassroots had an internal revolt against having a Gandhi apparatchik made CM (Prabhita Singh) and selected Sukku+Agnihotri instead.

In neighborhing Punjab, Gandhi family meddling to undermine Amrinder Singh+Sunhil Jakkar and attempt to put their lackey Navjot Singh Sidhu in charge lead to the INC losing Punjab to the AAP and grassroots Mazahbi+Punjabi Hindu INC members to join the BJP.

In neighboring JK, where the other half of my family is from, internal bickering between the Gandhi family's clique and their opposition lead the former CM of JK (Ghulam Nabi) to quit the INC and he will probably join the BJP out of spite.

The INC lost the entirety of Northeast India because conflicts with Rahul Gandhi in 2014 caused the current CM of Assam (and current contender for heir to Narendra Modi) - Himanta Biswas Sarma - to defect to the BJP and help organize the BJP in Northeast India to completely decimate the INC there.

Personality clashes between the Gandhi family and mid-level INC members has hollowed out the INC, as members either start their own parties (eg. National Congress in Maharashtra, Tiramool Congress in West Bengal, YSR Congress in Andhra Pradesh, Janta Dal United in Bihar, Samajwadi Party in Uttar Pradesh) or defect to the BJP (eg. Amrinder Singh in Punjab; Bommai, the BJP CM of Karnataka, is the son of a major ex-INC politician who started the Janta Dal after a fight with Sonia Gandhi; etc).

If INC wants to succeed at national elections again, they will need to drop the Gandhi family and bring back internal democracy within the organization. Lots of BJP politicians are half hearted in their support of the party and are only doing it out of spite against the current INC.

Alternatively, INC members are increasingly defecting to the AAP as well now too, but they have no shot at National Elections for 20 years at least.

India needs a healthy multi-party electoral system at the national level to prevent Authoritarian Democracy from taking hold, but the internal bickering within the INC is only enabling the BJP further.

[zapdrive]

How has the Congress party changed in the last 30 years? Still headed by a Gandhi or a person remote controlled by the Gandhi family. Their pm candidate Rahul's best qualification is being born a Gandhi. We all know how smart he is. The last vote to choose the party president was heavily ridden by loyalty votes rather than people voting on competency.

[jimsimmons]

You can find differences just as well you can find similarities. The Modi party btw is not some revolutionary departure from classic Indian politics either.

We are talking about grey stuff and you claim to see black and white things. There’s no way I or anyone else can convince you otherwise

[1024core]

> You can find differences just as well you can find similarities.

So please tell us what are the differences? I don't see many. It's the same dynastic party that was 120 years ago.