Didn’t Congress see this coming? The revolt by Sachin Pilot in Rajasthan was waiting to happen and the Congress high command allowed the situation to descend into a crisis from which extricating itself will be one major task that the party currently appears to be incapable of accomplishing. The party’s government in Rajasthan may or may not survive this crisis, but its reputation across the nation gets bruised, not just because one of its prominent young leaders has broken away, but because the party showed itself to be inept to manage the situation that befell it. This is almost a repeat of what happened in March this year, when Jyotiraditya Scindia quit the party and joined the BJP. The signs of a similar revolt in Rajasthan were showing, yet Congress was slow to act all along, the only difference is that Pilot has announced that he won’t join BJP.
The party has exposed itself to be powerless in undertaking any crisis management, whether it be at the national level or at the local State units. In four months this is the second deputy chief minister of the party that has revolted against the high command, while the latter cocooned itself uncertain of how to respond to the exists of its mass leaders. It made public statements that all issues would be resolved and that the doors to Pilot were open, even now it is talking of a ghar wapasi for pilot, but in a political crisis, public statements are just not enough. The party requires troubleshooters who will go the extra mile to save the Congress. The lack of such persons was glaringly visible during the episode in Madhya Pradesh and now again in Rajasthan.
In the space of less than four months the party has lost two of its young leaders, men who resonated with the youth voters and who had the potential of taking the party forward, not just in their home States but even across the nation, but they were never given the opportunity to prove what they could do. For a party that had just managed to form governments in Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan in 2018 and then slipped badly in the Lok Sabha elections of 2019, the loss of its young leaders is a direct reflection of the lack of strong leadership in the party.
As Congress MP Shashi Tharoor said, it is sad to see Pilot leave the party, and that if he returns and works for a revived and reformed party, he would be welcome. Despite the ghar wapasi plans for Pilot, was Tharoor speaking for himself or for all in the party? That is a question that is difficult to answer at the moment. Under the circumstances in which Pilot was stripped of his post as deputy chief minister and State party president, Tharoor was possibly airing his own views, but he was not wrong in what he said. Even South Goa MP Francisco Sardinha said it was sad to see Pilot leave the party. Congress needs an urgent session of serious introspection, but is there anybody in the party that will have the courage to question the high command on the matter?
In 2004 Sonia Gandhi could have been Prime Minister but she stepped aside and let Manmohan Singh take over the reins. He stayed at the helm for a decade. Last year after the Lok Sabha debacle Rahul Gandhi quit as president of the AICC, but the party is yet to elect a president. Sonia Gandhi stays on as the interim leader. Will the Gandhis step aside again and let somebody from outside the Nehru-Gandhi clan take over the party? Congress needs a leader that the others in the party will look up to, and it needs that leader now.
