The much publicised meeting between G-23 leaders, i.e. a group of 23 senior Congress dissenters and the party’s interim president Sonia Gandhi on the back lawn of her residence at 10 Janpath can at best be described as an exercise in breaking the ice and an attempted rapprochement between party veterans and the younger generation led by Rahul Gandhi. According to reports, none of the concerns raised by the G-23 in their bombshell letter to Sonia Gandhi in August was, however, addressed except for underscoring the need for organising more such meetings and brainstorms in future. The dissenters, led by Ghulam Nabi Azad-Kapil Sibal-Anand Sharma, in their letter clamoured for a thorough overhaul of the party’s leadership structure at all levels from top to bottom as the only way to come out of its moribund state following defeat after defeat in general and state elections for the past six years. The fact that the senior leaders appear convinced that the party’s Gandhi-Nehru family tag is no longer a talisman, was obliquely admitted by Sonia Gandhi when she emphasised at the open-air meeting that the Congress was “one family” meaning it is a political unit of all the members and not simply the fiefdom of one particular family.
The meeting was organised in the backdrop of a virtual open revolt by the 23 leaders. Even Pranab Mukherjee, in his memoirs, had tried to wash the Congress’ dirty linen in public but it only reflects his opportunism and timidity to take on the Gandhi family as long as he remained a key Union minister of Congress-led governments in different capacities. Compared to him, the G-23 has at least shown the guts to air their views that the only way left to save the party from becoming extinct is to recast the leadership from the post of party president down the ladder.
Reports claim both Sonia and Priyanka seem to have got the message and decided to mollify the senior leaders. The dissenters have in turn laid down certain conditions. There were, in all, 19 leaders, including six of the dissenting group -Anand Sharma, Ghulam Nabi Azad, Manish Tewari, Shashi Tharoor, Prithviraj Chavan and Vivek Tankha. Mercifully for the Congress, the issue of Rahul Gandhi spearheading the party was not raised and the dissenters made it clear they won’t even lend their support to any proxy candidate of the Gandhis. Due process of election for all the posts will be acceptable to them.
But, old habits die hard and Gandhi acolytes such as Pawan Bansal kept telling the media: “No one has a problem with Rahul Gandhi, and this is not just for today. Everybody said that we need Rahul Gandhi’s leadership. We must not fall into the trap of other people who are trying to distract the party’s agenda.”
As long as the Congress continues to prop up a scion of the Gandhi family as its automatic leader, it will be easy for the BJP to change the political discourse from its performance or the lack of it to the dynastic politics of the Congress which the nation has rejected. For, the majority of the people won’t think twice if they are given a choice between Narendra Modi and Rahul Gandhi or Modi and Priyanka Gandhi Vadra. The latter two can’t hold a candle to the former despite his “monumental mismanagement” of the country.
The fact is, every single one of these dissenters has had long innings at Parliament and state Assemblies but has not matured as people’s leaders. The reasons are well known. None of them made any effort to listen to people or even to their own party workers. While holding offices of power and money, they were concerned about their own well being and nothing beyond. The realisation to change is rather too little too late.
It is, therefore, time for the nation to look away from Congress. The vanquisher need not be from a predictable stable.