Anita Saluja
The spectacle of the Independence Day celebrations at the AICC headquarters this time was a reflection on the state of affairs in the Congress. The unfurling of the flag was performed not by Congress president Sonia Gandhi or Rahul Gandhi, but by veteran leader AK Antony. Within five minutes, the ceremony was complete. Outsiders like us, the journalists who have been covering the Congress for decades, were shocked to witness the plight of the party. There were not more than 50 people at the party office.
The Congress-led UPA government was always accused of policy paralysis, but with the absence of active leadership in the party for more than one year, ever since Rahul Gandhi resigned from the Congress president’s post after the party’s debacle in the General Election in 2019, the Congress had become moribund.
The rebellion in the party has been gradually increasing, with senior leaders and the upcoming leadership feeling restive, in the absence of any direction and the line to be taken on the policies of the Modi government.
Whether it was abrogation of Article 370, Chinese aggression, or the handling of Covid-19, there were no set party guidelines to be followed. Unlike the earlier tradition of regular Congress Working Committee (CWC) meetings or Congress Parliamentary Board (CPB) parleys, the party became completely directionless. Rahul Gandhi, on his own, used to tweet on every subject, to prove his own point that he was no longer a Pappu.
The senior leaders of the 135-year-old Congress remained mum on crucial issues, as they were clueless on what line to follow, thus giving a cake-walk to the ruling BJP to pursue its own Hindutva agenda. So, when Prime Minister Narendra Modi went to Ayodhya to perform Bhoomi Pujan, the Congress was silent, as they were totally ignorant on the stand to be taken.
In Parliament as well, both senior and young leaders felt fidgety and incapacitated, as they were ignorant of their party’s stand when it came to passing the Triple Talaaq Bill or abrogating Article 370. In fact, in the absence of any formulation of strategy in the Congress, the ruling BJP always had a field day. The Congress MPs, on the other hand, felt embarrassed and insulted. There were occasions when the Congress leaders took different and divergent stands on the same issue, the very recent being the abrogation of Article 370, where Ghulam Nabi Azad opposed the Bill strongly in the Upper House, while outside Parliament, leaders like Bhupinder Singh Hooda, Sachin Pilot and others took the opposite line.
The discontent in the party has been simmering for long, the reason why young leaders in the party like Jyotiraditya Scindia and Sachin Pilot were feeling suffocated. While Scindia succeeded in relocating himself to the BJP, there are others who were totally opposed to the BJP ideology and instead wanted to set their own house in order. The likes of Leader of the Opposition in Rajya Sabha Ghulam Nabi Azad, Bhupinder Singh Hooda, Anand Sharma and Veerappa Moily have spent their entire life in building the Congress and are therefore keen to ensure that the party is restored to its pristine glory. Similarly, the youngsters like Shashi Tharoor and Manish Tewari are putting in 24×7 efforts in keeping the party alive, but they need proper guidance on the stand to be taken on various important issues.
All the 23 Congress leaders, who have written to the party president, are not rebels, but the well-wishers of the party, who are keen to see a strong leadership at the helm of party affairs and a strong organisation that can take on the formidable ruling BJP dispensation at the Centre and in the states. There are many, who are also on the same page as the dissenters, but they lack courage to openly confront the leadership. Finally, it came to Ghulam Nabi Azad to bell the cat, in the larger interests of the party.
These leaders are not against the Gandhi family, per se, but are keen to put an end to the policy paralysis within the party. They want to rejuvenate the party, so that it can take up the challenge posed by the communal forces. They feel that already enough damage has been done, with the Modi government succeeding to fulfill the Hindutva agenda. In the case of the anti-Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) protests, due to the failure of the political parties to take a stand on a burning issue, the people, on their own, were forced to come out onto the streets and stage dharnas.
Despite persistent persuasion by the party leaders, Rahul Gandhi refused to take up the responsibility of the party president. Sonia Gandhi, on the other hand, was unwell to hold meetings and guide the party. Priyanka Gandhi only concentrated on the party affairs in Uttar Pradesh and like her brother, mostly spent her time tweeting. It was at such a juncture that the Congress well-wishers (this is what they claim), sprung to action and sought the support of their colleagues to demand an “active and full-time Congress president,” who could be visible and accessible to the partymen.
These leaders are not against the Gandhi family. In fact, they would like Rahul Gandhi to assume the post of Congress president, but in case he is not willing, the party should go ahead and hold organisational elections. It has only been thrice in recent times – during the time of Indira Gandhi in Delhi in 1977, under PV Narasimha Rao in Tirupati 1992, under Sitaram Kesri in Kolkata in 1997 – that the party elected CWC members and the Congress president.
In order to inject adrenaline in the party, the rebel group is of the firm opinion that there should be party polls and the deserving candidates should be elected. If elections are held under the leadership of Congress interim president Sonia Gandhi, the process will be smooth. However, much depends on the decision of the Gandhi family. Whatever decision the duo (the mother & the son) takes, it will indeed help the party, to take a step forward. The rebels have made up their mind to set the party in order and they won’t rest, until the task is completed.
The writer is a senior journalist.