The seven-hour Congress Working Committee (CWC) meeting on August 24 was, predictably, a stormy affair, with the Gandhi loyalists taking on the senior Congress leaders who wrote to the interim president, Sonia Gandhi, demanding course correction. That the ginger group of letter writers would be taken to task was a forgone conclusion.
The tone of the meeting was set when Ms. Gandhi offered to resign as the interim president , leading to a cacophony of voices pleading her to continue. Despite the inevitability of what transpired, a few things came to the fore: If anyone assumed that the Gandhi sycophants were guided only by blind loyalty and servility to vilify the dissenters on their own, Rahul Gandhi’s frontal attack on the ginger group, where he raised doubts about their motive and the timing, disproved it.
It was also clear that a non-Gandhi, however senior and loyal he or she might be, wouldn’t stand a chance to be Congress president even for a brief period. So, the game of musical chairs is set to continue: Ms. Gandhi’s interim presidency being followed in all probability by Mr. Gandhi’s election to the position at an All India Congress Committee session in the next six months. It is interesting to note that at the CWC meeting, Mr. Gandhi didn’t rule out getting back to the helm even as the loyalists made fervent pleas to make him change his mind.
The Gandhis are to blame
The overwhelming sentiment against a non-Gandhi being nominated as president is to do with ideological moorings. It is often argued that a non-Gandhi’s ideological underpinnings would be suspect, harking back to the Narasimha Rao term. That argument rings hollow, for it was Rajiv Gandhi who was responsible for the opening of the locks of the Babri Masjid in 1986 and for resorting to the Hindutva handbook in the 1989 election. In reality, the Gandhis are to blame for the present mess. Despite all their pretences of inner-party democracy, the Nehru-Gandhi family has appropriated to themselves the leadership of the party and actively promoted and incentivised sycophancy.
True, this goes back nearly 50 years ever since Indira Gandhi’s promotion of Sanjay Gandhi as her successor. However, back then, Indira Gandhi enjoyed popularity across the country following the 1971 election win and the subsequent creation of Bangladesh. Rahul Gandhi’s attempts to fashion himself as a modern Sanjay Gandhi, at least within his party, can only have disastrous consequences as he seems to want to wield power without responsibility.
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Basic demands
Now, what was it that the ginger group had asked for? They had basic demands including having full-time and active leadership at all levels, elected democratically, to serve the party that was adrift, and an end to ‘ad-hoc’ism. If that was seen as an affront, it only reveals the kind of anti-democratic impulses of the Gandhis. This non-democratic impulse seems to run in the family. Else, when the Allahabad High Court set aside the election of Indira Gandhi in 1975, why would she choose to impose Emergency to preserve her position rather than pass the baton on to the stalwarts within the party?
The less said about the coterie, the better. They seem to believe in preserving the hegemony of the Nehru-Gandhi family within the Congress rather than preserving the party itself. There are overt and covert insinuations about the motive of the letter writers and the need to put these issues in writing instead of resorting to the usual brush-it-under-the-carpet approach. That such a wide cross-section of leaders chose to undersign a document seeking revival of the party made it impossible to brush the letter under the carpet.
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For the likes of Ghulam Nabi Azad, Anand Sharma and Mukul Wasnik, forever dubbed Gandhi loyalists, to seek accountability only reveals that their primary loyalty is to the party more than the Gandhis. In fact, the letter nowhere tries to cast the Gandhis in poor light. On the contrary, there are portions exalting the Nehru-Gandhi family as an integral part of the Congress. If it stung the Gandhis, it is only because the letter clearly stated the need for institutional leadership and how leaders had to be consultative, bear responsibility and be available — highlighting the lack of it under the present set-up.
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Someone had to bell the cat. And if sources close to the ginger group are to be believed, more leaders within the fold, including the likes of P. Chidamabaram, offered moral support although they didn’t undersign fearing reprimand. Despite Ms. Gandhi’s assurance at the end of the meeting that she won’t bear any ill will, it is likely that the ginger group will be targeted. Whatever their fate, they have done a great service to the Congress party, which, in many ways, is a cross-section of the country rather than a regimented, cadre-based party.
Anand Kochukudy is a Kerala-based journalist and former editor, The Kochi Post
