When Will The Congress Wake Up?
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By Our Editorial Team
First publised on 2022-08-26 14:28:00
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The India Commentary view
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Another senior leader has quit the Congress party. But Ghulam Nabi Azad is not just another senior leader. He was at the forefront of the G-23, originally a group of 23 senior leaders who wrote a letter to Sonia Gandhi and demanded that the party holds organizational elections and usher in internal reforms. As a Congressman for five decades, Azad is an experienced leader who is respected across the political spectrum. But as he said in his resignation letter sent to interim Congress president Sonia Gandhi, the party has reached a "point of no return" as "inexperienced sycophants" have taken over to "demolish the consultative mechanism" in the party under Rahul Gandhi. He also said that the situation is so bad that Rahul Gandhi's bodyguards and personal assistants take important decisions as senior leaders have been "sidelined". These are very serious charges and reflect poorly on the party.
As is its wont and as it has been doing after each successive jolt when other leaders have quit the party in recent months, the Congress rubbished Azad's charges and called his resignation 'unfortunate' and the timing 'awful'. There were other disparaging remarks, in particular by party general secretary Jairam Ramesh who said that Azad has now been fully Modi-fied, whatever that might mean.
But the Congress party is not seeing the writing on the wall and that is unfortunate for the nation as it needs a strong opposition. The sycophants in the party, none of them grassroots politicians and surviving in the political arena solely due to the patronage of the Gandhi family, are spineless and cannot protest or raise their voice. The family is so concerned about losing its hold on the party that it never holds fair organizational elections (the ones that are held are a "farce" as Azad said in his letter). Rahul Gandhi and his cohorts have reduced the party to a joke and there is little doubt that it will be totally eclipsed - nationally and in some states by the BJP and in other states by the regional parties - in the very near future. Even in national or state alliances, it will be forced to play the role of a junior partner as it will not get the numbers.
There is still time. The party can correct the course. But for that, the Gandhi family will have to sidestep totally and that is something that will never happen as long as the family does not want it (which it will never want) and has enough drooling sycophants in important positions to prostrate before it to 'force' it to continue leading the party or, as is the buzz of Ashok Gehlot being made the party president, put a drooling loyalist as a proxy and call the shots over his head.
