| Wednesday , September 9 , 2015 |
Sonia soldiers on to save old guard- At helm for another year |
| Rasheed Kidwai |
 Sonia Gandhi on her way to the CWC meeting in New Delhi on Tuesday. Picture by Ramakant Kushwaha The decision to extend Sonia's term was taken " unanimously" by the Congress Working Committee whose term has already expired. All members - some had found a slot as early as 1998 and before - of the party's apex body were handpicked by Sonia. She has already completed 17 years as Congress president, the longest serving chief in the party's 130-year-old history. Today's decision is expected to allow all those who were directly responsible for the Congress's worst-ever electoral performance in 2014 to heave a collective sigh of relief. The 150-odd leaders holding all important positions in the organisation have survived and are set to continue, barring a minor shuffle that may see some veterans being given advisory posts or some elders moving to their home states. Sonia's decision to stay on at the helm is also expected to be viewed as a vote of lack of confidence in Rahul's leadership. The supporters of Sonia and Rahul have accepted status quo as best course under the present circumstances where the immediate electoral prospects of the party look bleak. The Congress is not expected to fare well in the Assembly polls scheduled at least till 2018, barring in some pockets in the Northeast. The Congress will continue to have two "supreme" leaders - Sonia and Rahul - for another year. Mohan Prakash, Madhusudan Mistri, Mohan Gopal, Jairam Ramesh, Ajay Maken and other self-proclaimed members of Team Rahul will co-exist with Motilal Vora, Janardhan Dwivedi, Ahmed Patel, Ghulam Nabi Azad and Ambika Soni. All Congress general secretaries, state heads and leaders in assemblies will have the option of aligning with the camps that identify themselves with Sonia or Rahul. In Congress circles, AICC general-secretary Mohan Prakash is referred to as "Ulta Paras" for his alleged ability to convert every opportunity into a failure. (Paras is a mythical rock that can turn stone into gold). Prakash handled party affairs in Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh, Gujarat, Uttar Pradesh and a few other states where the Congress has lost badly. The Congress's failure in municipal polls of Karnataka, Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan had come as no surprise to those familiar with the ground condition. Many reasons are being attributed to the Congress's lacklustre performance. One of them is the inability to prevent the drift of intermediary castes towards the BJP and other anti-Congress forces. In the past two decades, the Congress in Madhya Pradesh, for instance, has thrown up leaders with surnames such as Scindia, Shukla, Singh, Nath, Chaturvedi and Pachauri. In this galaxy of relatively upper class leaders, tribal, backward, Dalit and minority leadership remained symbolic. Similar are the stories in Uttar Pradesh and Bihar where the cream of the party leadership consists of Brahmins and Thakurs. The caste vacuum was compounded by the lack of ideas of the familiar play of cronyism. In Madhya Pradesh, where the BJP government was battling the fallout of the Vyapam scam, Rahul's Congress did nothing to encash the middle-class's perceived disenchantment with the Shivraj Singh Chouhan regime. The entire Congress leadership, including regional satraps, chose to be stationed in New Delhi, pulling strings to ensure that their minions get party tickets. Both Sonia and Rahul have remained impervious to the idea of accommodating intermediary castes at all levels of hierarchy. Instead, they have chosen what Sharad Pawar had derisively described in 1997 as a party of " teen mian ek Meira". Fighting against Sitaram Kesri for the AICC chief's post, Pawar had referred to Kesri's reliance on Ahmed Patel, Ghulam Nabi Azad, Tariq Anwar and Meira Kumar (all top AICC functionaries then). The situation has changed little - rootless wonders are still calling the shots. It has been several weeks since Rahul returned from his mysterious sabbatical but there have been few imprints of his new avatar, barring outbursts against the Narendra Modi government. Instead of settling the vexed leadership issue, Rahul has been visiting Mother Teresa Road residence of an influential party leader, ostensibly to pick few ropes in realpolitik. Cut to Room 39 - a makeshift barrack at the entrance of 24 Akbar Road that houses the Congress' national headquarters. It is the office of the "Central Election Authority" of the Congress. A room that is not even 6x4 feet is expected to conduct free and fair polls of an organisation claiming to have over 20 million members. This alone pictures a sorry state of affairs in the Congress. |