In 1978 and 1980, when Indira Gandhi looked to make her comeback after being routed in 1977, she chose Karnataka and the then united Andhra Pradesh to storm back into parliament, contesting and winning from Chikmagalur and Medak. Today Congress has lost Telangana, doesn’t exist in Andhra and in Karnataka was forced to tie up with JD(S) as a junior partner. Congress seems to be fading into nothingness, the Gandhi family name now a painful liability.

In Maharashtra and Haryana, the two states now heading into assembly elections, Congress is beset by open leadership battles. In Maharashtra, once a Congress citadel, the Mumbai unit is split wide open by the public spat between Milind Deora and Sanjay Nirupam. In the rural heartland several senior Congress leaders have smoothly switched to BJP.

Once an accommodative umbrella of castes and communities, today the Maharashtra Congress is reduced to a rump and likely to finish in fourth place behind BJP, Shiv Sena and NCP. In Haryana, where Congress once ruled unchallenged for a decade between 2004-2014, pollsters predict it may now struggle to even reach double digits in the 90 member assembly. In the midst of an election, signalling a kind of contempt for the party he led until just a few months ago, Rahul Gandhi has suddenly departed overseas.

In its long history, Congress has had its highs and lows, and 1977 was surely a nadir. But the present haemorrhaging shows an all-pervasive sense of defeat and hopelessness. A party that works according to loyalty to a family is preventing the rise of popular leaders. Former Congress members Mamata Banerjee, Jagan Reddy, even Sharad Pawar left to successfully form their own regional parties; now Congress leaders are quitting for sheer survival.

Congress’s response to the looming catastrophe has been to revive the party old guard, under the leadership of Sonia Gandhi, to return to the Gandhi family, to her relatively greater public acceptance and to place its hopes in the political experience of the seniors to make up for the mistakes of Team Rahul. Former CM Bhupinder Singh Hooda has been brought back in Haryana while Rahul appointee state party chief Ashok Tanwar has been forced to quit. The Sonia coterie led by veteran Ahmed Patel is once again an influential force, Rahul’s handpicked social media team has been re-jigged.

Yet the old guard will no longer cut it. To not realise that the 2019 election was a crushing and mass repudiation of the Gandhi family and its loyalists is to remain in wilful denial. It’s no longer about old vs new or Team Sonia vs Team Rahul, the malaise goes beyond individuals.

Is it time to write an obituary of Congress? Not quite. It’s still a powerful all India brand, 11 crore voted for it and it’s in power in four states and a Union territory. But to survive, Congress must disband the old party and create a new one. The party has split twice before: in 1969 Indira broke with the Syndicate and in 1978 she formed the Congress (I). It’s time for the Congress to split again, give a decent burial to the old Congress and create a new party called Swatantra Congress Party.

Founded in 1959 by C Rajagopalachari, the Swantantra Party was a party of individual enterprise and minimal, smart government. It scored well in the 1962 elections, winning 18 seats, then streaking up to 44 seats in 1967, becoming the single largest opposition party against Congress. In many ways bank nationalisation of 1969 was designed to cripple the Swatantra Party and cut off its money supply and it soon began to flounder, overwhelmed by the tidal wave of the personality-cult oriented populism unleashed by Indira Gandhi.

There’s a lot to learn from the Swatantra liberals, who were far ahead of their times. In the post-Indira era if there’s been a signal achievement of Congress, it’s been the economic liberalisation of 1991. Its successful period of Manmohanics won it a second term. Congress’s best avatar, whether it likes it or not, is as the party of economic reform.

In the last few months, the most effective interventions on the economy have come from Manmohan Singh. Even though his legacy has been sought to be tarnished as one of unremitting corruption, it is this former middle class hero who offers Congress its best path to revival. Today, as the Modi-led BJP becomes reminiscent of the 1970s Congress marked by authoritarian state power, populist nationalism and gigantic top-down welfare schemes, Congress can reinvent by becoming a modern, pro-reform Swatantra Party.

Swatantra means free, free from ideological baggage, free from dynasty. The Gandhi family with its appendage of an ossified ‘durbar’ is preventing internal democratisation and choking the rise of popular young leaders at every level. Two crucial demographics that have ricocheted away from Congress are youth and urban middle class, both sections united by anxieties about the economy. As in the 70s, the economy is in danger of being suffocated by state control and it’s the economic downturn which provides Congress its best chance of revival.

But it can only do this if it reanimates the politically centrist and economically liberal vision of PV Narasimha Rao and Manmohan Singh. It must steer clear of the Gandhi dynasty and its hallmark of champagne socialism. A new Swatantra Congress should hold elections to party posts and let a leader emerge through competition. A fresh vision of secularism is needed too, away from patronage of community interests, to an inclusive compact based on equal citizenship.

Democracy is meaningless without an opposition. The present Congress, hobbled with a ‘naamdaar’ dynasty, is incapable of challenging the powerful BJP. It’s time to consign Congress to the flames and register a new party with the EC.