Anil Anand
The Congress Working Committee (CWC), the highest decision making body of the Congress, meeting of August 24, 2020, if could turn-out to be a milestone it would also be remembered for formalising the old guard versus the new generation fight over generational changeover. The meeting brought the fight wide-open in the public domain. The battlelines have been drawn with clear indications of younger brigade led by Mr Rahul Gandhi at an advantageous position after having successfully thwarted a coup bid spearheaded by Leader of the Opposition in Rajya Sabha, Mr Ghulam Nabi Azad.
Mr Azad, the confirmed Gandhi family loyalist leading such a charge has been the biggest surprise of the meeting. When one CWC member also a former Union Minister remarked in the meeting, addressing Mr Azad, that he is the only Congress leader enjoying the privilege of national flag furling from his car without any break no matter whether the party is in ruling or the opposition, he/she had pointed towards his USP of being a Gandhi family loyalist that has paid dividends. Then why this move of writing a letter to the interim president, Mrs Sonia Gandhi questioning her style of working and leaking it to the press that too on the eve of the CWC meeting!
The CWC member had implied that though Congress is currently in the opposition, Mr Azad is still enjoying the cabinet minister’s rank by dint of being the LoP in Rajya Sabha while many others did not get such privileges even when Congress was ruling the country. The sarcasm must have been biting for him and had conveyed the strong message to others who were signatories to the letter that included former Union Ministers, Anand Sharma, Mukul Wasnik and Manish Tiwari, Kapil Sibal (the last two are not members of the CWC).
The CWC meeting unexpectedly turned out to be stormy and propelling the storm were not two dozen odd signatories to the letter but they were definitely instigators. It was Rahul Gandhi’s strong intervention when Mr Azad reportedly rose to speak, that created the stir. The former Congress president set the tone by questioning the motive and timing of the letter and subsequently its leakage in a section of the media. The others followed in their own way and manner. Some like former Prime Minister, Dr Manmohan Singh and former Defence Minister, A K Antony hit at the rebellious leaders in their own inimitable gentle style but the selection of words by the two were definitely strong. The others led by Mr Gandhi went ballistic that not only took the signatories to the letter by surprise but they were upstaged and as some Congresspersons later commented that the coup bid has failed.
The seven hour marathon session of the CWC was a history of sorts as it is seldom that such meetings have lasted beyond an hour in the past. It was a clear showdown between the two groups before a conciliatory note was struck and finally everyone agreed to the proposal that Gandhi would continue in the capacity of interim president for another six months after which an AICC session would be held to elect/select a new president.
On the face of it, the truce seemed to have been achieved. However, at best it could be described as an uneasy calm, or is that the rebel leaders went into a lull by sudden turning of tables on them to rejuvenate themselves and strike back at another day. There is no doubt that they lost the first round.
Since Azad was the leader of the charging brigade and being its senior most member he reportedly found himself cornered with even some junior CWC members sniping at him. One such member, without naming anyone, was learnt to have expressed doubts that as to why after the partial abrogation of Article 370 when former chief ministers of J&K were kept under house arrest, one was left out. Was there some quid pro quo? He sought an explanation on this count citing that he has been unable to give a satisfactory reply to his workers who have been repeatedly asking this question.
Credit must be given to Mr Azad and other signatories to the letter to have shaken the party out of slumber. There has been a clamour in the organisation for taking bold decisions to overhaul the party but every plea fell on deaf ears and Mrs Gandhi instead preferred to adopt her now popular status quo policy and looked the other way. Interestingly, Mr Azad himself being member of the status quo ante supporters and a part of almost every high level committee involved in decision making, became the catalyst to shake the party out of inertia for whatever be the reasons. It is but natural that many of his colleagues have been connecting this development to Azad’s recently held hour long meeting with Prime Minister, Mr Narendra Modi. Although he had immediately after the meeting stated that he discussed Jammu and Kashmir developments with Mr Modi in the light of the demotion of the state to Union Territory and related problems such as reverting back to statehood.
Both friends and critics of Mr Azad, Mr Sharma and others are befuddled by these Gandhi family loyalists suddenly deciding to turn rebellious. Is there more to this move than what meets the eye, is a question on everyone’s lips.
Nevertheless, this CWC meeting has the potential to become a milestone as it has not only shaken the party but set in real term the process of younger set of leaders finally coming to the forefront unless the high command still takes the risk of again slipping into inertia under the intoxication of having withered the storm. This would not only embolden the rebellious forces within but will also give more latitude to the arch-rivals BJP to hit even harder to achieve Mr Modi’s dream of “Congressmukt Bharat”.
In fact the rebellion has left Mrs Gandhi and her team with little choice but to take hard decisions and that too within a timeframe lest another storm strike the Congress shores. This episode would also force the first family of the Congress to revisit the definition of a loyalist particularly when the authors of the protest letters were known for their proximity to the family for decades. It has put the loyalists on the defensive and taken away their bargaining power which in the ultimate would make decision making easier for the high command.
It will also force the family to remodel itself as the sole proprietors of the Congress. There is no harm if they look for someone as the party president from outside the family as has been suggested by Mr Rahul Gandhi and Mrs Vadra. The decentralisation of power with a strong system of fixing accountability particularly at the AICC levels would do wonders to check further drift.
Although majority of the rebel brigade members had by the evening of the day scaled down but they cannot be taken lightly. Interesting times await the Congress ahead which can lead to a make or break situation depending on how the decision makers move forward.
feedbackexcelsior@gmail.com
Trending Now
E-Paper
Follow our WhatsApp channel