The mystery is why is the Congress not having its Thatcher moment. Why doesn’t it replace its leader(s) even though they are unable to take their party to victory | Photo Credit: SUSHIL KUMAR VERMA

The year was 1990. Margaret Thatcher was the prime minister of the UK. She had won her party a third consecutive term in 1987 but by the end of 1989 she had become so hugely unpopular that her own party, which she had run with an iron hand, started turning against her.

A year later, when her closest ally, Geoffrey Howe, turned against her, she was forced to resign. The party asked itself a simple question: would it win the next election with her leading it. As 1990 progressed it became increasingly clear that it would not.

So it decided to replace her. That turned out to be the correct decision. The Conservative Party won again in 1992 giving it 18 consecutive years in power. That would actually have been 20 had Thatcher not brought forward the scheduled election of 1984.

Thatcher believed that a certain degree of fear of the leader was essential to be a good prime minister. Authority had to be backstopped by fear. Otherwise it would be weak. It was the headmaster or headmistress principle.

An article published by the BBC had this to say about her last November. “One of her ministers, Chris Patten, told the BBC in 2005 that Thatcher recognised ‘people need to be a bit scared of you if you’re going to get your own way’.”

The article also quotes her as saying: “I think sometimes the prime minister should be intimidating. There’s not much point being a weak, floppy thing in the chair, is there?”

So what brought this hugely successful, powerful, popular and feisty prime minister down? One was her decision to allow local councils to levy a flat tax on everyone regardless of their income. Another was her steadfast opposition to the European project.

But these were the rational reasons. Truth was that people had got fed up with her ways and wanted a change. Anyone would do except her.

The larger question

The Thatcher ouster and others like it, raise an important question: at what point does a leader become a liability to his or her party? When I discussed this with former senior bureaucrat, Brijeshwar Singh, he said the same thing has been happening to the Congress party — the leader has become a liability. But the party has yet to act on the realisation.

Indeed, he said, it happened to Mulayam Singh Yadav of the Samajwadi Party and Prakash Singh Badal, of the Akali Dal, too, to name just two major politicians. They went and the party survived and did well in subsequent elections.

The exception has been Lalu Prasad Yadav whose party has done very badly even after being taken over by a son. The point is not whether the voter base has ceased to exist. It hasn’t. The point is that the son, Tejasvi Yadav, is not quite up to winning power.

The same question is now being asked of the DMK, too. Earlier this year it was handed a resounding defeat by a newcomer to politics, a film actor called C Joseph Vijay.

His party won 49 seats more than the DMK. That left no one in any doubt that the long reign of the Karunanidhi family over the party was over. Likewise the Trinamool Congress where its supremo since formation, Mamata Banerjee, may have to make way.

Apre mois l’deluge

The mystery is why is the Congress not having its Thatcher moment. Why doesn’t it replace its leader(s) even though they are unable to take their party to victory.

One answer is that while Mulayam Singh, PS Badal, Laloo Yadav and MK Stalin, etc., all have children who can take over, Rahul Gandhi doesn’t. Nor can he hand the party over to his sister for well-known reasons.

And as we have seen, even a son or a daughter isn’t a guarantee of victory. All dynasts have bitten the dust. People simply get bored with them.

This dynastic failure means that the only alternative is for someone to form a new party that can tap into the disenchantment of voters. The history of Indian politics is littered with such parties, a handful of which have been immensely successful.

The BJP’s strength lies in it being able to choose or anoint a new leader, who may be appointed or fight his way through. This obviates the need for a new party to challenge the BJP.

For some reason this doesn’t apply to the CPM which, like the BJP, has both an ideology and cadres. But it doesn’t have leadership, so Thatcher moments don’t happen in it. There’s nobody to remove.

As the third decade of this century meanders to an end, we will see a lot of Thatcher moments. The process has begun in and with Tamil Nadu. The fourth decade promises to be a very dynamic one.

Published on August 23, 2026