The Maharashtra and Haryana elections had all but sealed the fate of Congress, the fact reemphasized in the local Delhi elections this year. The grand old party is struggling to maintain its face and is forced to partner with their most avowed political adversaries, like the Shiv Sena in Maharashtra.
Gandhi family’s stranglehold on the organization continues tightly with Mother Sonia and Son taking turns in the presidentship and toying with daughter Priyanka testing the waters as the chief of the East UP Congress party, where it has fared poorly in the last elections.
The organization is split between old loyalists like Ashok Gehlot, Dig Vijay Singh, P. Chidambaram, Kapil Sibal, Moti Lal Vora, AK Anthony, Mallikarjun Kharge, Veerappa Moily on the one side and the not-so-old and youths like Sashi Tharoor, Jyotiraditya Scindia, Sachin Pilot, Milind Deora on the other side. There has been open resentment over Sonia Gandhi’s resumption as the (interim) president of the Congress party, post-2019 LS elections and the not-too-surprising resignation of Rahul Gandhi following a rout in the LS elections.
Scindia today quit Congress after 18 years of association rendering a body blow to the beleaguered party. Ashok Gehlot is in Delhi to calm a concerned leadership over the rumblings at Rajasthan. Sachin Pilot is also terribly upset with the old guard and could leave sooner or later. More than Rajasthan, Maharashtra seems to be the next battlefront as murmurs are getting louder from the grassroots level Sena workers, upset with Sena for entering into a partnership with the Congress for forming the government. The fall of Kamal Nath led Congress government could catalyze such repeats in other states too.
Congress has no space in Tamil Nadu Andhra, and Telangana and has lost out to BJP in Karnataka. It survives over the Left’s assistance in Kerala. The party has no show in West Bengal, Odisha, and Bihar. In Jharkhand, Congress is a junior partner to the JMM party, as in Maharashtra. It is Captain Amarinder Singh’s turf in Punjab, and the Gandhi’s do not have any hold.
Congress must realise that they are fighting a formidable foe. The party has no strategists like Pranab Mukherjee forcing them to rely on rabble-rousers like Adhir Choudhury in the Lok Sabha. It is time to hold the organizational elections of the party in a democratic manner, where the Gandhi family must voluntarily opt-out in a graceful way. If they continue to think that Rahul or Priyanka can take over and run, there will be more repeats like Scindia episode of the day.
A vibrant, participative opposition is conducive in the nation’s interest, and the Congress must not waste its present limited intellectual talents in primarily focusing on attacking Prime Minister Modi. After seven years of rule, there are no corruption charges yet on them, which makes it difficult for Congress to pick on issues.
The love of the family must yield to the love of the party and the nation. Will the Gandhis dare? Will the sycophants within the party agree? Why the signatories to every issue under the sky are silent in this matter?
Sampath Kumar
Intrépide Voix
