Fissures in the headless Congress appeared over the Modi Government’s decision on Article 370 with Rajya Sabha MP and chief whip Bhubaneshwar Kalita resigning from the membership of the Rajya Sabha opposing the party’s stand and senior party leader Janardan Dwivedi publicly supporting the ruling dispensation’s decision.
Rajya Sabha Chairman M Venkaiah Naidu announced in the House that he has accepted Kalita’s resignation.
“I was asked by the party to issue a whip but this is against the mood of the nation. The party as it is on its way towards destruction and I can’t be a contributor to it,” he said in a letter.
Kalita is a Rajya Sabha member from Assam. He had only a few months left in his tenure and was due to retire on April 9, 2020. He is the second Congress MP from Rajya Sabha to resign in the recent past after Sanjay Sinh, a member of the erstwhile Amethi royal family who has joined the BJP.
“I have resigned from Rajya Sabha membership today,” Kalita said. Asked about his future plans, he said he will disclose them after a few days. He did not confirm if he was joining the BJP.
For his part, Dwivedi’s assertion came even as the Congress staunchly opposed the Government’s decision.
Dwivedi said: “My political guru Ram Manohar Lohia ji was always against this Article. A mistake of history has been corrected today, albeit late. I welcome this.”
Dwivedi speaking against the party’s line of action isn’t surprising, as it comes when the Congress is facing a severe leadership crisis — one that has led the party to lose its Government in Karnataka and its Goa MLAs, who switched over to the BJP giving it a stranglehold of the western coastal state.
Several top Congress leaders like Shashi Tharoor, Amarinder Singh, Anil Shastri, Karan Singh amongst others voiced concern over lack of clarity over the leadership issue
The party on Sunday announced that Congress Working Committee (CWC) will meet on August 10 to find a successor to Rahul Gandhi to lead the party. The meeting would be the first since Rahul announced his decision to quit as the party chief following the party’s Lok Sabha debacle.
Many have opined that Priyanka Gandhi was the need of the hour. However, Priyanka has said she is not ready to take the baton since she was newer to the party as compared to her sibling Rahul too has ruled out the possibility of a Gandhi family member succeeding him
Tharoor even said that the party should appoint an interim president and then hold internal elections to senior leadership positions which would allay all concerns.
The party is undergoing a deep crisis and elected representatives at national and State level including Karnataka and Maharashtra have quit the grand old party to join the ruling BJP. Leaders of the party have cited indecision and confusion within the rank and file of the party after Rahul’s resignation as a reason to quit.
A host of leaders holding party positions, a majority of them in the middle-level, had resigned after Rahul quit to enable restructuring of the party. Top Congress leaders have been pondering over who could succeed Rahul and several rounds of meetings have taken place, but a decision on his successor has not been taken yet.