Sir — This refers to the editorial, “‘Bapu’ Vaghela’s punch” (July 24). The editorial has rightly observed that the Congress is being marginalised in State after State. In Uttar Pradesh, it is in single digit, its traditional hold in the North-East too is in the hands of the BJP now. So is the case in Bihar where it could get 27 seats with the charity of the Rashtriya Janata Dal, and its voice is no longer effective there. It is all due to the immaturity of the Delhi-based Congress leadership which is adept in disrupting the working of apex institutions of democracy, with the two Nehru-Gandhis still ruling the roost. In Gujarat, it has a good number of 56 seats, but in recent presidential election, 11 Congress MlAs voted for RN Kovind as President. The Congress is in doldrums in Gujarat, where even SS Vaghela could not have saved it the coming election.
The top duo in Congress will not allow any fresh thinking within the party. The Nehru-Gandhi dynasty will continue to ruin it down the hill in Gujarat, Vaghela or no Vaghela. It has been the Congress’s dynastic policy which is the main cause of the party’s decay, along with corruption. Had it made the senior-most Minister Jagjivan Ram the Prime Minister when Indira Gandhi lost the election petition in 1975, the Scheduled Castes could have been won over for a long period of time. Again, the Congress could have put up a Dalit face instead of Pratibha Patil as President. Meira Kumar could have been the candidate then, instead of now.