The State Of The Congress Party
By A Special Correspondent
First publised on 2020-08-25 12:56:59
About the Author
The internal frictions in the Congress were on full display in the marathon Working Committee meeting. Although Sonia Gandhi just said she was "hurt" by the letter asking for a full-time president sent to her by several top leaders, Rahul Gandhi led the charge against the signatories. He questioned the timing of the letter, being particularly upset with the fact that it was sent when his mother was in the hospital. He also raised the point that the letter was written at a time when the Congress was trying to fight off the poaching attempt by the BJP in Rajasthan.
Taking a cue from this, many other leaders tried to corner the so-called dissenters. Kumari Shelja, with an axe to grind against Bhupinder Singh Hooda (who is her competitor in Haryana), is reported to have said that the signatories had colluded with the BJP (although this statement was first attributed to Rahul Gandhi and led to an angry tweet from Kapil Sibal that was later withdrawn) to cause a rift in the party.
This, in turn, led to an emotional response from Ghulam Nabi Azad. Azad offered to resign if anyone could prove that the signatories had colluded with the BJP. Even Kapil Sibal raised the issue of loyalty in his first tweet when he said that he was not fighting cases for the party to hear such allegations. The loyalist targeted Azad in particular.
Ambika Soni made a strong pitch for disciplinary action against the 'offenders'. The party had also expressed its anger in the way the letter was leaked to the media. It was said that such things should be discussed in party forums and by going public the signatories had damaged the reputation of the party and needed to be penalized. Several other leaders pressed for such action but Sonia Gandhi doused the flames by saying that she held no "ill-will" against them.
Two things emerged from the ruckus. First, the loyalists far outnumber the dissenters and hence the Congress is not yet ready to look beyond the Gandhis. Second, despite it alleging that the BJP is being run by the Modi-Shah team and that it crushes dissent with an iron hand, the Congress is the same. No one is allowed to raise their voice against the state of affairs in the party in general and the Gandhi family in particular. The pot and the kettle are both black.
