Manas Dasgupta
NEW DELHI, March 13: Refusing to learn any lesson from the past, the senior Congress leaders had again been pitching for Rahul Gandhi to take over the mantle of the party again even as the dissident leaders called for a complete overhaul of the organisational machinery at the Congress Working Committee meeting on Sunday.
The Rajasthan chief minister Ashok Gehlot, the Karnataka Congress chief DK Shivakumar, the youth Congress chief BV Srinivas, senior Delhi Congress leader Alka Lamba and a host of other leaders had been voicing their demands for Rahul Gandhi to be made the party president even before the meeting of the CWC, the top decision-making body of the grand old party began on Sunday evening.
Besides Gehlot, the only other Congress chief minister Bhupesh Baghel of Chhattisgarh was also present in the meeting which was attended by almost all the CWC members except the former prime minister Manmohan Singh and the veteran leader AK Antony, who has got a bout of Covid
Days after the Congress suffered a crushing defeat in Assembly elections in five states, the party’s top decision-making body met on Sunday to introspect and analyse the causes of party’s continuous poor show but refused to blamed the top leadership of any shortcomings.
Despite the rout — the party’s tenth Assembly election defeat since its disastrous showing in the 2019 Lok Sabha elections — none of the senior leaders have expressed lack of faith in the Gandhis. Instead, ahead of the CWC meeting, there was a chorus expressing faith in their leadership. Such shows of support have now become a regular affair in the Congress.
Unlike in the past, the party did not circulate the interim Congress president Sonia Gandhi’s opening speech at the CWC meeting.
Ahead of the meeting, Gehlot said Rahul should take over as party president again. “Rahul Gandhi should take over as President (so that) the party remains united. It will remain united and it was united under his leadership. They talk about the family. In the last 30 years, no one from the family has become the prime minister or chief minister or minister. Even then why is the leadership of the party given to them? (Because) people of all sections and religions have faith in the family. And the family is necessary for strengthening the Congress,” Gehlot said.
“The prime minister has to start his speech after targeting Rahul Gandhi, you can understand what this means,” Gehlot said. He accused the BJP of winning the recent round of assembly polls by indulging in polarisation. However, he accepted that the Congress lost in Punjab due to infighting.
Shivakumar echoed Gehlot when he posted on Twitter, “As I have said earlier as well, Sh. Rahul Gandhi should take up the Congress presidency in a full-time role immediately. This is the wish of millions of Congress workers like me.” The Youth Congress chief said the Gandhi family was the “thread that binds together not only the Congress but all sections of the country and it is not dependent on any electoral victory or defeat.” The Jharkhand unit of the party passed a resolution expressing faith and confidence in the leadership of Sonia Gandhi.
Gehlot said winning and losing are part of politics and accused the BJP of misleading people in the name of Hindutva and indulging in “dangerous politics.” “It is very easy to do politics in the name of religion and caste. They are doing that. They are not bothered about the interests of the country. They are only bothered about their interests. It is a dangerous situation. The people of the country will realise all this one day… They painted the Congress as a party of Muslims and through social media they managed to take this (message) to every home. The people started thinking that there must be some truth in it. Slowly, the people will realise and the truth will come out one day,” he said.
As the CWC meeting was in progress at the AICC headquarters, a group of Youth Congress workers assembled outside raising slogans in support of the Gandhis. The chorus for making Rahul Gandhi Congress president grew even louder as several leaders and workers voiced support for him to take on the mantle of party chief.
Rahul Gandhi had resigned as Congress president after the party suffered its second consecutive defeat in general elections in 2019. Sonia Gandhi, who took over the reins of the party again as interim president, had also offered to quit in August 2020 after strong criticism by a section of leaders, referred to as G-23, but the CWC had urged her to continue.
The Congress, however, is expected to advance the internal elections scheduled in September amid renewed questions about its leadership, the party sources said. The massive rout in the five states has revived searing criticism of the Gandhi family and demands for a complete overhaul and leadership change from the dissidents, particularly the group known as the “G-23” or group of 23 “dissenters” who had written to Sonia Gandhi two years ago.
Sources say the Congress organisational elections to select a new party chief, scheduled in August-September, may now be advanced by two-three months.
Meanwhile, the senior Congress leader Shashi Tharoor on Sunday pointed to the party having the largest number of MLAs in the country in the Opposition camp and asserted that it was “worth reforming and reviving.” Taking to Twitter, Tharoor shared a list of the number of MLAs that respective parties in the county have nationwide. According to the list shared by him, the Congress has over 750 MLAs, the most after the BJP which has over 1,400 legislators in different state Assemblies in the country.
