The grand old
party of Indian politics the Indian National Congress seems to find no end to
the churnings inside and outside. Given the consecutive drubbings it has
received in the general elections both in 2014 and 2019, it is not surprising
to find those churnings. At the core of the churnings and discontent in the
Congress is the Nehru-Gandhi family which has treated it as a family business.
As a matter of fact, the ownership of the Congress by the Nehru-Gandhi family
is nothing new. It goes back to 1931 when Motilal Nehru was on his deathbed. He
was a member of the Congress Working Committee (CWC), the highest policy making
body in the party. So were his son
Jawaharlal, daughther in law, Kamala, son in law, Ranjit Pandit. Soon they were
followed by Motilal’s daughter Vijayalakshmi. The control of the party by the
family in many ways is close to nine decades now though it was only in the last
fifty years that it was complete domination.
The current
crisis began immediately after the results of 2019 elections were announced.
The Congress lost its government first in Karnataka and later in Madhya
Pradesh. They have barely managed to save their government in Rajasthan. In
Maharashtra, while they stole the government from under the nose of the BJP,
they are marginal players, the reins being in the hands of Sharad Pawar and
Shiv Sena. Discontents are visible in Jharkhand. It is losing coalition
partners in Kerala.
Rahul Gandhi
resigned as the Congress President after the elections only to have his mother
reappointed as Congress President. It was to be an interim position, yet, more
than a year has elapsed with no signs of permanent full time president being
appointed. All the last CWC meeting managed to achieve was to ensure Sonia
would continue for at least six more months with no definite time table in
place for party elections. Meanwhile while his mother is the party president,
the reins of power stills continues to be exercised by Rahul. There is a feeling increasingly being
expressed that Rahul doesn’t want to hold any official position but wants to
exercise power without responsibility. A case in point is the appointment of
Hardik Patel as Gujarat Congress President ahead of many a seasoned veterans.
The recent
manifestation of the crisis emerged when 23 leaders of the party led by the
Leader of the Opposition in the Rajya Sabha sent a letter to the party
president. The letter demanded a schedule for elections for both party
president and party working committee. It called for collective leadership, in other
words return to the primacy of long defunct Parliamentary Board. The letter was
leaked on the eve of the Working Committee meeting. No doubt, it set in a chain
of events of expression of loyalty to the party president or in other words the
first family of the Congress party. The leaders who wrote this letter were
sidelined. It was not before some fireworks happened on Twitter.
While it might
have ended as a storm in tea cup something witnessed in Rajasthan, it is mere
comma with the sentence yet to be completed. All that seemed to have happened
is postponement of the showdown to sometime in the near future. Rather than a
front against Sonia, it seems a pre-emptive attack on Rahul to ensure he
doesn’t return as party president. The self styled Crown Prince of the Congress
party for long believes that he is destined man to lead the country. Yet when
the opportunities emerged he declined trying to signal statesmanship. The
Prince has no positioning and keeps flirting with his stands. There is no
consistency something conceded by some of his admirers too. Recent outbursts by
Congress leaning intellectuals like Ramachandra Guha are pointers to
frustration with Rahul and his style of functioning. Moreover, rather relying
on the tried and tested old guard, he seems to rely on his own coterie drawn
from outside politics. The effects were visible in the 2019 elections when he
lived in a delusion that the party would form the government till the election
results began trickling in. This merely confirmed the political naiveté of the
Prince in waiting. His team has virtually zero experience on the ground and
many are in fact from dynasties. Unlike his uncle Sanjay and father Rajiv who
moulded a generation of leaders, Rahul has been far from it. Almost all of his
inner circle have no experience in politics or trace their roots as products of
dynasties. Moreover, in his desire to mould on grandmom, he is planning a coup
or rather the Congress version of the Night of Long Knives. Yet he lacks the
political acumen nor the charisma of his grandmother nor can rely on the
instincts that his uncle perfected.
Yet, it is
undeniable that the stage to back down from the confrontation is over. The
family has no option but to fight it out. Rahul Gandhi might have perfected or
at least seems to believe his strategy will pay rich dividends in the times to
come. Yet, irrespective of its merits or otherwise, it is virtually impossible
for Rahul to change course mid-way. This in turn puts across a dilemma for the
family. The family cannot be seen as to be admitting that Rahul’s game plan was
a failure. It further cannot admit that the current strategy of Rahul will
yield diminishing returns going forward. Both mother and sister have no option
but to brave it out. Contrary to the projection that there is a split in the
family or differences of opinion exists in the family, it is clear that the family
takes a common stand once it finalizes the same at its dinner table. To an
average Congressman however, it is a different ball game. Their future rests on
different motivations and parameters than that of the first family of the
party. The letter that was sent was essentially a reflection of the same. It
was an opinion that many in the party had been expressing in the private but
very few would dare to bell the cat. All that Ghulam Nabi Azad and team did was
to attempt belling the cat. They probably thought they would do a Leo Amery but
could end up being caught in the Night of Long Knives.
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