Early this week, it took less than ten seconds for the illegal twin towers of Noida to fall to the ground. It must have taken over nine years for the building project to be completed and hundreds of flats to be built.
In the end, the most striking image of the court-ordered demolition of the Noida twin towers was the dust from the falling debris exploding like a volcanic eruption.
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It’s an image that also highlights the state of one political party in India- the grand old Congress falling to the ground, with its inner explosions consuming the party. The dust that is emerging only clouds the debris of destruction which is beneath.
After Gulam Nabi Azad’s resignation from the party, there are about 100 others who have left the Congress across the country, with J and K recording the bulk of those resignations.
On Tuesday, 65 leaders resigned from the party in support of Ghulam Nabi Azad. After this, on Wednesday also 42 leaders left the party. All these leaders say that they will join the newly-formed party of Ghulam Nabi Azad.
Also on Tuesday, veteran Congressmen like Bhupinder Singh Hooda and Anand Sharma met Azad in Delhi. News reports from Delhi suggest that in such a situation, there are speculations that these leaders can also give some setbacks to Congress in the coming days. Anand Sharma has already resigned as President of the Himachal Pradesh Campaign Committee.
Shockingly even now the Gandhis are acting like Maharajas. While there is a clear demand that the Congress President’s elections should be a contest, the Gandhis internally want no contest at all, i.e., get elected unopposed. In this context, Shashi Tharoor’s statement is significant. He said, “In my opinion, why not another person come to the post of the Congress president? There are lakhs of members in the party.”
The Congress has always faced resignations before. But this time it is different. After 2019 and then post some Assembly poll losses, different leaders at many levels offered to resign due to the performance of the party.
But these current resignations are focused on one man- Rahul Gandhi, and how he has destroyed the party. If the Congress was like the twin towers that got demolished in Noida, Rahul Gandhi, to many who have resigned or will resign; is like the explosive, solely responsible for bringing down the party.
One of the important lines in the resignation letter of Gulam Nabi Azad, (addressing Sonia Gandhi) was “The remote control model that demolished the institutional integrity of the UPA government now got applied to the Indian National Congress. While you are just a nominal figurehead all the important decisions were being taken by Shri Rahul Gandhi or rather worse his security guards and PAs (personal assistants).”
In Goa, the Goa Congress suffered precisely because its then GPCC president accessed Rahul Gandhi in the same manner.
From prior to the last Assembly elections (when he was not the GPCC president) to the current one, and even after, Girish Chodankar has had a free run in the party, where he has controlled decision-making at the organisational level as well in the ticket distribution. He used his access with Rahul Gandhi through this staff (as Gulam Nabi Azad mentioned, to do this).
Irrespective of whatever happens in the Goa Congress, Girish is always found in Delhi within easy reach of Rahul Gandhi’s residence networking his way through his PAs and other staff.
He pretty much contested any election he wanted, held a lot of sway in the ticket distribution process in the 2017 elections, and even after being dropped as party president, he refused to step back.
The hundreds of resignations now are a tsunami of discontent against Rahul Gandhi and the manner in which he is, dismantling the party, that many of the senior leaders have helped build, with their sweat and toil. Unable to take Gandhi’s style of functioning or non-functioning, many are following Gulam Nabi Azad as he belled the cat. Instead of going to the BJP he has taken the plunge to launch another party and with the rate at which Congressmen are resigning, probably to join him, it is Rahul Gandhi who is the Congress’ biggest problem. If the Gandhis don’t leave the Congress, the ‘Congress’ will leave the Gandhis.
In Goa, Girish Chodankar continued to be Rahul Gandhi’s eager apprentice and did not allow any alternate power centre or leadership to emerge.
Meanwhile, Digambar Kamat, who by virtue of his stature could have strengthened the Congress base as an all-Goa leader and built the party. However, the charge against him that he spends more time trying to cut a deal with the BJP that rebuilding the Congress seems to stick and his actions do not give confidence that he is with the party. But unlike Gulam Nabi Azad and others who broke out, Kamat looks more likely to walk through the doors of the BJP along with a motley crew of other MLAs than fight a battle for getting back the true Congress of the past.
As the home of the Congress burns, in Delhi and Goa, Rahul Gandhi like Nero has fiddled, with his representative Chodankar, fiddling on his behalf, in Goa.
It is said that you can rebuild only when you build from scratch. In one way the demolition of the Congress may pave the way for rebuilding once the intense amount of dust settles and new beginnings can be made.
