01 Mar 2021  |   04:56am IST

At sea and rudderless, Congress needs to act fast

Soon after retiring from the Rajya Sabha senior Congress leader and former Chief Minister of the erstwhile State of Jammu & Kashmir, Ghulam Nabi Azad, in a very guarded manner challenged the Congress party leadership at Jammu on Saturday.
At sea and rudderless, Congress needs to act fast

The meeting which had no placard or posters of Congress ‘hand’ symbol, was attended by senior Congress leaders. Those who attended included former Haryana Chief Minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda, Anand Sharma, Kapil Sibal, Manish Tewari, Raj Babbar and Vivek Tankha in addition to Azad, all wearing a saffron coloured turban, much to the dismay of the political pundits. All these senior Congress leaders raised the internal issues of the Party and opined their views on why the party became weak in the last one decade. Not too long ago, barely three weeks ago, Prime Minister Narendra Modi in a farewell speech for Ghulam Nabi Azad in the Parliament went emotional citing his deep rooted friendship with the retiring member Azad.

At the “Shanti Sammelan” (peace convention) to connect with the party cadres on the ground, senior Congress leader and former union minister Kapil Sibal in fact questioned Congress top leaders on letting Azad retire from the Rajya Sabha especially at a time when the party is weakening. The entire G-23, which Raj Babbar called it Gandhi-23, have clearly shown their unhappiness towards the Rahul Gandhi’s style of functioning. This has surely ruffled the feathers of top Congress leader. Even the Congress spokesperson Abhishek Manu Singhvi had to mention that, “they (G-23) should have strengthened the party by jumping into the campaign in the five States and Union Territory going to the polls.”

In fact Kapil Sibal was very guarded in his statement and mentioned that they had gathered in Jammu to do something to stop the Congress get weaker and weaker. “We had gathered together earlier too and our primary goal is to strengthen the party together,” Sibal added. This statement made media and the political pundits hold back from using the word “revolt”. However, there is no doubt that all is not well at the higher echelons of the Congress when it is struggling to garner seats in Assembly as well National elections. The inner-party bickering had also popped-up recently in Congress-ruled Rajasthan when Deputy Chief Minister Sachin Pilot and Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot had an ugly political fight which hit the headlines in all media.

The G-23 camp with Azad at its helm questions Rahul Gandhi and wants elections at all levels, including that of the national president, instead of the culture of nominations perpetrated by the Gandhis over the years and virtually para-dropping. 

In an interesting turn of events, Congress general secretary Priyanka Gandhi had a quiet one-to-one luncheon meeting with Azad early last week, and in all likelihood wanted senior leaders to accept her brother Rahul Gandhi as the party president to replace their mother and interim president Sonia Gandhi.

Azad in Jammu had clearly stated that many ‘rebels' were willing to join the G-23 but he himself asked them to wait. Speculation is that Azad has also conveyed it to Priyanka that many leaders in his camp are upset with Rahul from the way he has been taking decisions unilaterally and without consulting the other senior and experienced leaders in the Party. It is also not possible for Priyanka to be seen with the ’rebel’ Congress leaders unless she was specifically told by Rahul or Sonia to meet them to resolve the impasse.

When Congress is ‘weak’, it became the most opportune moment for the senior Party hawks to jump in and demand for a truly democratic election of the Congress Party President. However, dates for the organisational elections have still not been announced by the interim President Sonia Gandhi as there is still no consensus on acceptance of Rahul Gandhi as the next party president. In fact, Rahul has already expressed that he would not like to hold the post of the president that he gave up in 2019 after the party's crushing defeat in the Lok Sabha elections as he felt he was responsible for the defeat. The oldest political party in India is in deep sea and it seems rudderless. The message is going down to the ordinary Congress workers and it is not good for any party to be in such a position. The decision needs to be made and made faster.


IDhar UDHAR

Idhar Udhar