A non-Gandhi Congress, reality or myth?

I was still in my teens in 1969 when Indira Gandhi split the Congress party but was a keen 1969 marked the critical moment in the history of INC where Congress got split into two parts.

Indira dared to take on the Syndicate, the ‘old guard’ of the Congress party, defeating the official presidential candidate Sanjeeva Reddy, with a clarion call for a conscience vote for her candidate V.V. Giri. The Congress members defied a ‘whip’ voting for Giri, who won, and the Party expelled Prime Minister Indira Gandhi. Indira’s faction became the real Congress, the Organisational Congress soon fading and merging with the Janata Party. 

Today the CWC meeting had all the elements of a 1969 repeat, a family, pseudo Gandhis, grappling the growth of the Party with their stranglehold.  Senior Congressmen, uncharacteristically wrote a letter two weeks ago for a need to change the leadership, as the Gandhis were squirming. An astute politician, Sonia ensured the leak of the letter ‘in time,’ to let their sycophant followers oppose the writers of the letter. Sacrilege they shouted, ‘colluding with BJP,’ Rahul warned even as the seniors dared to resign unless proved otherwise. 

The letter was written by many seniors, which included, Leader of Opposition in Rajya Sabha Ghulam Nabi Azad; party M.P.s and former Union Ministers Anand Sharma, Kapil Sibal, Manish Tewari, Sashi Tharoor, MP Vivek Tankha; many past Congress Chief Ministers and Union Ministers like Bhupinder Singh Hooda, Rajender Kaur Bhattal, M Veerappa Moily, Prithviraj Chavan, P J Kurian, Ajay Singh, Renuka Chaudhary, and Milind Deora.

The Party continued its downslide from 2014 under the lackadaisical leadership of Rahul. Sonia was forced to take the reins as the interim President of the Congress, despite her indifferent health but the interim part seemed to stretch longer than the official tenure. Attempts by the crafty sycophants to push Priyanka were not met with success in UP against the organisational strength of the BJP, RSS and the oratory and administrative skill of CM Yogi Adityanath.

Surely, this was the time, to send Gandhi family packing on a long holiday, far away from India, if the Congress party had the least intention of a revival to face Modi in 2024. The errors and the deficiencies of NDA could not be capitalised into goals by a directionless leadership of Congress, which has betrayed the nation as a responsible opposition party, relying totally and only on the ‘family.’

I recall when Subramaniam Swamy went to the President to apprise him pf Sonia’s lack of credentials to become the Prime Minister of India and Manmohan Singh was foisted to the post.  Congress supporters soon gathered at the house of Singh and vandalised his place threatening with dire consequences if he accepts the Prime Ministership.

I had information of a virtual coup, which seems shy of an open showdown, but only for now. The scion of the Party, Rahul, has caused irreparable damage by calling the elders as colluders with BJP, a price he has to pay dearly. The leaders are aspirants and cannot drive a losing party without any plan. Rahul’s negative jibes at PM Modi has only resulted in rap over the knuckles by the courts, and neither Priyanka seems fir, despite her masquerading with the looks of her grandmother. I saw a few posters of Vadra in UP during the last elections, which explains the depth of sycophancy in India and what money power can do!

The leaders must gracefully walk out and do an ‘à la Indira.’ About Indira Kissinger famously stated, “I wish we had a man as strong as she in our cabinet.” We need to see if the statement holds good for the Congress party too! All I hear from Delhi is a few leaders may send in their resignations tomorrow.

Sampath Kumar

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