Aditya Hore
NEW DELHI, August 25: The Gandhi family has once again succeeded in derailing their critics and re-established that challenging the supremacy of the Gandhis at the helm of affairs in the Congress is no credible option.
As the information leaking out from the insiders at the day-long meeting of the Congress Working Committee in Delhi on Monday, it was clear that the dissenters have lost the battle, at least for the time being, and the supporters of the Gandhis in the party, despite virulent criticism by the BJP and its top leader the prime minister Narendra Modi remained unshaken at the top of the oldest political party of the country.
Also for the time being the dissenters have escaped disciplinary actions, despite such a demand voiced by a section of Gandhi supports, but some punishment in different forms in coming days could not be ruled out altogether. The party insiders point to the punishment recently inflicted on its hitherto “television face” Sanjay Jha, who used to appear for the Congress to defend the party in TV debate shows at all odds, was removed as the party’s spokesman for a similar criticism of the leadership.
Coming close on the heels of the attempts by the BJP to destabilize the Congress government in Rajasthan, the dissenting letter by 23 senior leaders of the party, who included the leader of the opposition in Rajya Sabha, Ghulam Nabi Azad, the party spokesman Anand Sharma, the noted lawyer Kapil Sibbal, and even once the party’s “fire-fighter” Veerappa Moily, and several others serving the Congress since the days of Indira Gandhi, upset the Gandhis and their supporters in the party. The supporters, including the “Congress prince” Rahul Gandhi, took strong objections to the “timing” of the letter as it had come when the interim president Sonia Gandhi was ill and had been to the hospital. It, however, was not clear if Rahul had described the dissenters as the “BJP agents” citing the wrong timings of the letter when the party required to fight against its detractors unitedly because Kapil Sibbal had later withdrew his critical tweets stating that the former president did not criticize them as “colluding with the BJP.” But there was no doubt that another senior leader and a close family member Kumari Selja did use the offensive expression against the dissenters and after her all other speakers at the CWC virtual meeting had called the dissenters the “BJP agent.” Significantly, the Gandhis did not disassociate themselves from the comment thereby giving legitimacy to the criticism of the anti-family members being BJP stooges within the party.
What the dissenters expected was not something unthinkable, “stability” at the top leadership particularly because of Mrs Gandhi’s ill health and Rahul’s alleged “escapist attitude.” The letter to Mrs Gandhi called for ending “uncertainty in leadership” and expressed serious concern over the drift in the party suggesting a “full-time” and “visible leadership” at the helm. It had pointed out that since the interim president was not keeping good health, a regular working president who could devote full time to address the party’s concerns should be appointed while Mrs Gandhi took care of her health and provide advises to the party leadership.
The dissenters had hoped that the CWC would address their concerns and because it was their “collective conscience” the hopes were high. But all the expectations came to naught and after day-long vocal exercises, the status quo remained, al beit for a period of six months when the Congress was expected to “elect” a new president replacing Sonia Gandhi. But the Congress has gone through such promised exercises in the past also without anything tangible emerging at the end.
The tone of the meeting was virtually set by Sonia Gandhi right at the outset when in her opening remarks she gave the sense of being “hurt” by the “ill-timed” letter which was allegedly “leaked” to the media before the CWC meet. All hell broke loose afterwards with the family supporters, who commanded majority in the 48-member CWC, pouncing on the dissenters for “throwing a challenge to the Gandhis leadership.”
The reports of the meeting available said Rahul, who was seated next to his mother, made repeated interventions and often launched counter-attacks against the dissenters. He questioned the timing of the letter linking it with the poor health of Sonia Gandhi and crises in units of the Congress in Rajasthan and earlier in Madhya Pradesh. He also reportedly cited publication of the letter as a “proof” of thriving internal democracy in the Congress and questioned the “motive” of the letter at such crucial time.
Quelling the Dissent
The letter had claimed that since the rise of the Modi government in 2014, Congress did not have a “visible leader” at the helm and though Rahul was virtually the sole leader, who had also occupied the post of the president for some time till he quit in the wake of the party’s massive debacle in the 2019 Parliamentary elections, his style of functioning was causing concern to many leaders. Rahul was viewed as a “part-time” politician because he often remained inaccessible even to some senior leaders in the party and often used to “vanish” suddenly from the scene of activity leaving the party high and dry with no clues about the next step the party expected to take. Rahul and his sister Priyanka Gandhi Vadra, the party general secretary, reportedly attacked the dissenters giving out a loud message that their letter was not going to have any impact on the outcome of the CWC meet.
Reports also emerged that some close aides of the Gandhi family had reached out to some of the dissenters ahead of the CWC meet advising them not to “upset” the Gandhis by giving too much importance to the dissent letter.
A major achievement of the CWC for the Gandhis was to effectively suppress the dissent, the serious most challenge the first family in the Congress faced since the revolt by Sharad Pawar in 1999 over the issue of Sonia Gandhi’s foreign origin.
Sonia Gandhi said ‘she was pained by the leak of the letter’. Pointing to the opposition’s benefit out of the quarrel, Rahul Gandhi said the leaks in the media go on to benefit the BJP. It was an attack on those responsible for leaking or writing the letter as well as on the news media.
Few other Congress leaders namely, Kumari Selja and Ambika Soni went a step further. Dissenters were criticized by Selja for allegedly colluding with the BJP in raising the leadership issue in the Congress and veteran leader Ambika Soni reportedly demanding disciplinary action against the writers of the letter. However, no disciplinary action was initiated at the meeting. But the message emerging from the CWC meet was loud and clear, “come what may, do not try to upstage the Gandhi family at the top.”