Congress leaders upset as Rahul Gandhi goes missing again, skips Sheila Dikshit’s funeral

Congress president Rahul Gandhi, who resigned after the party’s debacle in the Lok Sabha elections, has been in the United States since last week.

Rahul Gandhi outside the Parliament | Praveen Jain | ThePrint

New Delhi: Outgoing Congress president Rahul Gandhi’s absence from former Delhi chief minister Sheila Dikshit’s funeral has triggered discontent and indignation in the party, with some leaders extremely upset by, what they feel, is his insensitivity and apathy.

While his mother Sonia Gandhi and sister Priyanka Gandhi Vadra were among a huge gathering of leaders at Dikshit’s funeral at the Nigambodh Ghat in Delhi, there was a wreath with Rahul Gandhi’s name on it.

The Congress president, who had resigned after the party’s debacle in the Lok Sabha elections, has been in the United States since last week.

Clueless about his foreign visit, many Congress leaders who spoke to ThePrint expressed exasperation and indignation at Rahul skipping Dikshit’s funeral, pointing out that she had been very close and loyal to the Nehru-Gandhi family.

Dikshit had contested her first Lok Sabha election in 1984 and went on to become a minister in Rajiv Gandhi’s PMO two years later. She had gone with Congress (Tiwari) and returned to the party only after Sonia Gandhi took over the reins in 1998. She has remained loyal to the party’s first family although many of her detractors had managed to secure plum posts in the party after Rahul began calling the shots.

‘Resigned but still working’

Other leaders told ThePrint that though Rahul has resigned, he has been appointing state unit chiefs and dissolving local units of the party in many states while the search for his successor is on.

“He loved Sheila Dikshit, if he could have, he would have made it to the funeral,” said a Congress leader seeking to defend Rahul. He added that the Congress president would be back shortly, claiming that he could return as early as Tuesday.

Gandhi’s foreign visit comes at a time when the Congress seems to be imploding from within.

Party leaders in Maharashtra said that in the absence of any guidance and the leadership crisis at the top, “virtually every Congress leader” in the poll-bound state is ready to jump ship. So is the case in Haryana and Jharkhand, which are also scheduled to go to polls later this year.

In Karnataka, the Congress-JD(S) coalition government is hanging by a thread, while in Goa, 10 Congress legislators quit the Congress to join the Bharatiya Janata Party — all within the last month.