It looks like the reconciliation with dissenters is intended as a tradeoff for supporting Rahul as party president
The Congress, battered as it is as a non-performing party externally and a non-transformative one internally, stopped short of just teetering over the edge by agreeing to give a listen to senior dissenters who have been insisting on an “active and visible leadership”. Even the normally intransigent Rahul Gandhi, who has been steadfastly refusing to lead the party given the growing clamour for an elected chief and organisational overhaul, softened somewhat, saying that he was willing to “work for the party as all desire”. Read it against senior party spokesperson Randeep Singh Surjewala’s remark that “99.9 per cent” of the Congress men wanted Rahul as their leader. Also, considering the role of the party’s first family loyalist Kamal Nath in setting up a meeting with the dissenters, one wonders whether the meeting was indeed called to resolve issues or cut a deal. One where both sides agreed to hold elections to the Congress Working Committee (CWC), giving a semblance of inner party democracy, and then have the elected office-bearers endorse Rahul without him going through the process of voting; or even if an election is held for public perception, to ensure that Rahul is the unanimous choice of the elders. It is no secret that incumbent Congress chief Sonia Gandhi has been holding on to justify the continuity of the Gandhi legacy at the helm. In fact, it was her unwillingness to hand over the leadership to a non-Gandhian that had stagnated decision-making within the party for a long, long time, causing much damage to the party’s electoral prospects as it lost State after State and fortune-hunting members to the ruling BJP. In fact, after the party’s disastrous performance in Bihar, well-meaning party leaders took the decisive step of writing a letter and then publicising it enough to build a case for organisational elections, widening the representational berth from the grassroots, ending the status quo and coterie raj and rewarding talent. So the meeting among Sonia, Rahul, Priyanka Gandhi-Vadra and the so-called “rebels” was meant to assuage the latter — considering all 23 of them have political weight and have built the party. And, by promising to address their grievances, she may have bought their support for Rahul.
The rapprochement became necessary as the Gandhis realised that they were being seen as despots, where their one-time courtiers had even lost their right to constructive criticism. Worse, Sonia even sidelined them within the party. And for all the cadres’ hopes on Priyanka, who is much more active in field campaigns than Rahul, the party is still fumbling around in Uttar Pradesh. Without political manifestation, her best efforts have made the Congress a largely non-profit organisation. How much sense will hardselling the Gandhi tag make now? That, too, at a time when senior leaders like Jitin Prasada and Raj Babbar, who had signed the dissent note, had been dropped from the State election panels despite working the ground for years. Senior loyalist Salman Khurshid will lead the team, which also includes Nirmal Khatri and Naseeb Pathan, to formulate the Congress manifesto. While Khurshid has the experience, both Khatri and Pathan have been clearly rewarded for opposing the “dissenters” who had written to party president Sonia Gandhi. Even if a compromise is reached, there is a deliberateness with which the leadership is conveying a strict message — “Stand with us or else face doom.” And should Rahul be re-anointed in much the same manner as earlier, it will legitimise the family’s priorities as the party’s own, never mind the impact it has on electoral prospects. If last year was difficult, the run-up to 2022 will be even more difficult, given the BJP’s propaganda machinery and the RSS’ rapid network. Besides, Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath has scored quite a bit on perception value post-pandemic, UP being the first State to facilitate movement of migrants, providing jobs and now climbing the charts steadily on the ease of doing business. If he manages an economic recovery and meet public health challenges, the Congress would find it difficult to play issue-based politics and cannot draw on dynastic sustenance. The day the UP poll panels were set up, nine expelled party leaders wrote to Sonia and asked that the party “rise above the affinity for the family”. Rahul has to self-correct, rise above ego, value honest counsel and appear selfless in the interests of a larger political legacy.
