Congress Party

Congress Party

So it has been proven once again that Congressmen can not look beyond the Gandhis, as after lots of deliberations and wait of more than 2 months, they were left with no options but to  choose Sonia Gandhi as Interim President of the Congress Party, because there was no concurrence on any other name. The young brigade of Congress who were rooting for any young leaders to lead the party, in the end lost to old brigade when the seniors felt that there is no one else to lead the party at this crucial juncture.

It all started on 25^th May, two days after Congress led UPA lost miserably to BJP led NDA. Individually Congress could gain 8 seats from their earlier tally of 44. Rahul Gandhi resigned as Congress President, accepting responsibility for the party’s defeat. In the usual show of sycophancy Congress Working Committee (CWC) refused to accept Rahul’s resignation, but Rahul did not budge from his decision. When Rahul had resigned, he had said that neither his mother Sonia Gandhi nor his sister Priyanka Gandhi Vadra would succeed him. His resignation was intended to push the veterans into accepting the accountability and make way for new team.

But this had little affect on the veterans, but Rahul stood firm on his decision and hoped that the call for change would come from inside the party, and initially it looked like this might work when Congress leaders old and young, such as Amarinder Singh, Jyotiraditya Scindia, Shashi Tharoor and Manish Tewari demanded an early resolution of the leadership crisis, and some of them even asked for young President.

So during the CWC meetings when it was decided to form five sub committees to look for new chief of the party, Sonia and Rahul left the CWC meeting, and returned only after the sub committees took the decision to recommend Sonia’s name for the top post.  By pushing her name, the senior leaders of Congress neutralised any possibility of rebellion from the young aspirants, although during the deliberations name of Mukul Wasnik had cropped up. But the problem for the Chairperson of every sub committee was, without the formal backing of Gandhi family, the authority of such a President would always be questioned, and secondly with Sonia’s name, any demand for immediate election for Presidentship will highly unlikely. But the fact remains the 72 year old ailing leader still remains the last hope of the Congress party, does not enhance  the party’s image.

Before Dec 2017, when Rahul took over as Congress President, the party had two power centre 10 Janpath Road and 12 Tughlaq lane, respective residences of Sonia and Rahul. So after 2017, some of the leaders who had no political standing but remained powerful because of their loyalty to Sonia, were sidelined. Now all these leaders will stage their come back, it is yet to be seen that whether team of Rahul Gandhi will give space to them. If the happenings of last two months are any indicative, Rahul’s team have been working on building narrative that will disassociate Rahul from the uncomfortable legacy of corruption charges against the earlier UPA Govt.

With two power circles, who are having contrasting style, the decision making process in the party is bound to be slow, plus now there is going to be third power centre in the name of Priyanka Gandhi, even her name was also suggested by some leaders for President’s post. It is not going to be ideal situation at the time when Congress has to fight  BJP, who is firmly established in the power at centre, with comfortable majority in Lok Sabha and the passing of recent bills like Triple Talaq and  reorganisation of J&K state into union territory in the Rajya Sabha also proves that BJP can manage to sway fence sitting parties in their fold when the time comes. Passing of these two bills only took the air out of opposition and specially Congress, which only cements the fact the BJP is the party which do not hesitate to take tough decisions and in turn gets thee backing of electorate. Presently the Congress party is at its lowest position electorally, with elections in big state like Maharashtra due in couple of months, with this new scenario its position looks very fragile.

In the end return of Sonia has also undone one thing, which was Rahul’s most significant message while resigning, that Congress party is not a dynast party now, which was charge of BJP that he is enjoying the privileges being a dynast. He would have never thought that his mother will succeed him, when he resigned on 25^th May 2019.

So in the end it has been proved that most of the Congress leaders are spineless, and they need support/backing of Gandhi family for their survival in politics. The fact remains that majority of Congressmen have not seen any party chief  for almost 4 decades other than member of Gandhi family (except for 6 years of Rao/Sitaram Kesari), so Congressmen can not imagine Congress without Gandhi family, now after Sonia then it will be Priyanka and after her may be her children. One thing is for sure that Rahul tried his level best that Gandhi family should come out of Congress but in the end he failed.

What future holds for Congress party is very uncertain.

So friends what do you think on this matter.

Waiting for your views/feed backs/comments.

Anil Malik

Mumbai, India

12^th Aug 2019.