Congress interim president will find it difficult to placate dissenters by relieving Rahul Gandhi’s loyalists of their advisory roles.
New Delhi: Congress interim chief Sonia Gandhi may have got into action to save the party from a possible split, but her efforts are hardly going to make any big difference.
Recently, Sonia Gandhi met the disgruntled leaders of G23 group separately, urging them to strengthen the party at a time when it is passing through a bad phase. What Sonia Gandhi is keen to do is to ensure that the party gets out of the present crisis at least for now. However, it is not easy for Sonia Gandhi to achieve what she desires in terms of drastic organizational changes.
Removal of any office-bearer at this stage will be interpreted as a move against Sonia Gandhi’s son Rahul Gandhi, and the message will be that the party chief succumbed to pressure from dissenters. In fact, the three leaders whom dissenters want to be removed from their posts happen to be Rahul Gandhi’s loyalists. AICC general secretary in charge of organisation K.C. Venugopal tops the list of these leaders. He is followed by Randeep Singh Surjewala and Ajay Maken as far as priority is concerned. These three leaders are the key advisors of Rahul Gandhi who relies on Venugopal the most.
In some of the meetings that happen at 12 Tughlak Road residence, Rahul Gandhi even authorizes Venugopal to take decisions in his absence. Similarly, Sonia Gandhi will find it difficult to fulfil another demand of dissenters which is about constituting a powerful board like parliamentary board. In fact, this board will be more powerful than the CWC and if it comes into being, the powers of the president will be curtailed. Such a board used to exist during P.V. Narasimha Rao’s tenure, and the same was dissolved when Sonia Gandhi took charge of the party. After this, she started taking all decisions.
The demand for reconstituting this board was raised when Rahul Gandhi was president in 2018. But it went unheard. Again, the disgruntled leaders want this board to be in existence. Observers believe that when Rahul Gandhi could not set up this board when he was all powerful, it won’t be easy to take a call on it amid decline in power. So, Sonia Gandhi has little options to pacify the dissenters with. A couple of them may be adjusted in Rajya Sabha, while some may be given organizational posts. Leaders like Bhupinder Singh Hooda could be placated by being given charge of the party in Haryana.
Meanwhile, there are some leaders in the Congress who still believe that the party will be back in power. Their logic is that the Hindutva agenda of the BJP will not be that effective for long. They believe that the most PM Modi can get is that he could be voted back to power once again in 2024. According to them, after 2024, the voters will be disillusioned with BJP’s agenda of Hindutva, and will, therefore, return to Congress’ ideology, which means the grand old party will get back to power in 2029. These Congress leaders are not giving any importance to Arvind Kejriwal and his party AAP now. Similarly, the growing popularity of UP Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath also doesn’t matter to them. Even if the perception of these leaders may be correct, the question is how many leaders will continue to be in the party which is becoming weaker day by day.
The Congress has already lost its claim for the post of Leader of Opposition in Lok Sabha. The party is gradually going to meet the same fate in Rajya Sabha, where the Congress’ strength is reduced to 31. If the number reaches below 25, then it might lose the claim for Leader of Opposition in the Upper House as well. It is mandatory for Congress to win states if it wants to increase strength in Rajya Sabha. But it is facing defeats in Assembly elections.
If the party splits, then its symbol will be in trouble. Then anything might happen, given the BJP’s “Congress Mukt Bharat” agenda. So, if Sonia Gandhi shows some courage to deal with the impending crisis, then only things may improve a bit.