Think of an army general addressing soldiers on the front line right before the start of a war. What if he tells them that there are ‘traitors’ among them, who are conniving with the enemy? He promises to filter them out but the soldiers won’t stop looking over each other’s shoulders. Well, the war is lost even before it begins.
Rahul Gandhi was that general at a meeting with Congress workers and leaders in Ahmedabad on Saturday. The former party president told them that there were leaders in Gujarat Congress who were conniving with the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and unless they were filtered out, the people wouldn’t trust the Congress. It was supposedly a pep talk to workers and leaders who haven’t seen the Congress win an Assembly election in Gujarat for 35 years. One doesn’t know the trigger for this ‘internal sabotage’ theory, but it sounds so familiar.
Remember his resignation letter after the Congress party’s debacle in the 2019 Lok Sabha election? He was supposedly owning up to the defeat and resigning as the party president. But the four-page resignation letter was anything but an admission of mistakes. He said that he “personally fought” the prime minister, the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh and the institutions they “captured” “with all my being”. “At times, I stood completely alone and am extremely proud of it,” Gandhi said, in an obvious dig at his party colleagues, purportedly for not backing him in his fight. “Numerous people will have to be made accountable for the failure of 2019,” he said.
Rahul Gandhi looking for “Vibhishans” in Gujarat Congress is, therefore, not surprising. A couple of months after the BJP was reduced to 240 seats in the Lok Sabha in 2024, Gandhi had thundered in Ahmedabad: “We will defeat Narendra Modi and the BJP in Gujarat the way we did in Ayodhya.”
Seven months later, in the municipal polls last month, the Congress was able to form the board in only 1 out of 68 municipalities—down from 12. Even the Samajwadi Party formed the board in two municipalities.
So, who was responsible for the Congress’ rout in the municipal polls? Going by Gandhi’s theory on Saturday, it was the Congress party’s ‘Vibhishans’. When he was appointed All India Congress Committee general secretary in charge of the Indian Youth Congress and the NSUI in 2007, his main peeve was against the ‘system’. After taking over as the party vice-president in Jaipur in January 2013, he said, “A system where a handful of people in power, removed from reality, made decisions that affected the aam aadmi or common man, was a flawed system.” The answer is not in running the system better, but in its “complete transformation” to give the aam aadmi a role in the political space. “Why are people angry…because they are alienated from the system. Their voices are trampled upon,” he said.
So, who was he holding responsible for building this ‘system’ in the Congress? Not his mother, Sonia Gandhi, who was completing an uninterrupted tenure of 15 years as the Congress President when he became the vice president. Not then-Prime Minister Manmohan Singh whose government was full of her nominees. He was referring to a “handful of people” who were unresponsive and unaccountable and who dominated the political space. The message wasn’t lost on anyone. For Rahul, the Old Guard formed the system and he had to break it. Twelve years since then, with the Old Guard completely sidelined or fading away, he is still angry. He can’t blame the system any longer as he has run the party directly or indirectly all these years. Vibhishans must, therefore, take the blame for reducing the party to where it is today.
Also read: Amit Shah’s command and control system in BJP is malfunctioning. Even poll wins can’t fix it
Racehorses and wedding horses
Rahul Gandhi is barking up the wrong tree, though. In fact, his speech on Saturday gave a big clue about why nothing is changing for the Congress. As Gandhi recalled, a party worker from Madhya Pradesh told him about two types of horses—one for the race and another for the wedding. He told Rahul that the Congress was using the racehorse in weddings and the wedding horse in the race.
It was interesting to hear Rahul cite that conversation. Because the Congress’ latest list of organisational appointments validated what the MP Congress functionary told him.
One of the new general secretaries is Syed Naseer Hussain who cut his teeth into politics as a leader of the Students’ Federation of India (SFI), the students’ wing of the Communist Party of India (Marxist), at the Jawaharlal Nehru University. He later joined the Indian Youth Congress and got close to Oscar Fernandes and then Mallikarjun Kharge. He is on his second term in the Rajya Sabha now. Someone who never won a direct election is now AICC in charge of Jammu & Kashmir and Ladakh.
Ajay Kumar Lallu, the former Uttar Pradesh Congress chief who presided over the party’s decimation in the 2022 Assembly election in the state, has been appointed AICC in-charge of Odisha. The last time the Congress won an Assembly election in Odisha was in 1995. Lallu is now expected to change the party’s fortune there.
K Raju, a former bureaucrat and Rahul’s trusted lieutenant who has never contested an election, is now the AICC in-charge of Jharkhand. He is off the blocks, acknowledging that there are ‘sleeper cells’ in Jharkhand Congress, like in Gujarat, who are conniving with the BJP.
Youth Congress leader Krishna Allavaru who also never contested an election has been made in-charge of Bihar. He has also already created a buzz, saying that the Congress will contest the next election in the state as A-team, not B-team of the Rashtriya Janata Dal.
Another interesting name on the list of new office-bearers was that of Meenakshi Natarajan, who has been made in-charge of Congress-ruled Telangana. She was Madhya Pradesh Youth Congress president from 2002 to 2005 and had courted a controversy, coining the slogan “gau hamaari maataa hai, Atal Bihari khaataa hai. (The cow is our mother and Atal Bihari eats her)” She soon endeared herself to Rahul Gandhi and got into his core group. Party insiders say that what endeared her to Gandhi was her ostensible simplicity and austerity. After her appointment as Telangana in-charge, she took a train from Delhi to Hyderabad and wouldn’t let any party functionary pick up her bags. After losing 2014 and 2019 Lok Sabha elections from Mandsaur, she faded away only to spring a surprise with her new role as Telangana in-charge.
So much for the difference between race and wedding horses!
Also read: Political row over Hindi is good for Stalin and BJP, not Tamils
Take responsibility
Rahul Gandhi constantly stresses that Congress leaders and workers talk with the people to understand what they want from the party. He may do well to talk with these leaders and workers. For instance, those in Karnataka are still wondering why both Gandhi and Kharge stayed away from the Global Investors Meet in Bengaluru. There was speculation in the party that they chose to deliver a snub to the Siddaramaiah-led government for inviting Union Ministers and BJP leaders to the big event. The high command hasn’t bothered to offer any explanation, though.
Gandhi-Kharge may also like to tell Congress leaders and workers why they stayed away from the Mahakumbh. When Sonia Gandhi had taken a dip at the Mahakumbh in 2001, the Congress had explained: “Sonia’s visit is in conformity with the tradition of the Nehru family. It has always responded to the impulses and beliefs of broad masses.” So, why did the Gandhis decide to stay away from this time? Did they fail to understand the impulses and beliefs of millions of people who took a dip this time? Or, did they believe that it was a BJP event, like the consecration of Ram Lalla in Ayodhya Ram temple, and so they had to skip it? The Gandhis obviously don’t see any need for them to offer an explanation to party workers and leaders.
There are numerous other questions Congress functionaries want to ask the high command but they can’t. In a 2013 speech in Jaipur, Rahul Gandhi spoke about “leadership development” and about the need to prepare 40-50 such leaders who could run not just states but also the country. Every state should have 10 such leaders who could become chief ministers, he said.
He has been in control of the party since then. Where are those leaders? Even leaders who could fit in this category today find little support from the high command—say, Shashi Tharoor in Kerala, Gaurav Gogoi in Assam, Sachin Pilot in Rajasthan, Deepender Hooda in Haryana, Manish Tewari in Punjab. These leaders have come this far on their own and must be wondering about their growth prospects.
Why is it that the Gandhis are so reluctant to promote bright leaders? What is so special about Randeep Surjewala that he continues to call the shots in the party even after losing the last two times he contested an Assembly poll? What is it in KC Venugopal that he continues to be general secretary (organisation) for years, with little achievement to justify his role in the party? Why is the Congress organisation in shambles across the country despite Rahul Gandhi talking about rebuilding it for years? There are numerous questions Congress leaders and workers have but they can only talk in private.
It’s easier to blame the system or the Vibhishans but Rahul Gandhi needs to do a lot more. Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the BJP’s chief strategist, Amit Shah, don’t blame workers and leaders or question their loyalty and integrity—not publicly, at least—for electoral losses or the party’s below-par performances, say, in Kerala, Tamil Nadu, Telangana or West Bengal. They lead from the front and take electoral losses on the chin. Looking for excuses or scapegoats is not leadership.
DK Singh is Political Editor at ThePrint. He tweets @dksingh73. Views are personal.
(Edited by Theres Sudeep)
It is true Rahul Gandhi has no experience to head a big party like Congress. He is there at the top due to his family. But Rahul is telling the truth. Many Congress MLAs and MPs are looking forward to an invitation from BJP. Because Congress is now full dynasts at all levels of party leadership even down to the level of booth workers and supporters. These guys want to stay relevant even if it means joining BJP or any other party. Congress is doomed even if its GODI media, the original GODI consisting of old senior journos and editors want Congress to come back to life.