New Delhi: Congress president Rahul Gandhi has taken full responsibility for the party’s poor showing in the 2019 Lok Sabha elections, telling senior leaders at the Congress Working Committee (CWC) meeting Saturday that anyone could replace him — that the successor didn’t have to be from “one family”.
At least eight Congress leaders present at the meeting told ThePrint that the proceedings turned emotional as Gandhi offered to resign as president of a party that has been led by four generations of his family.
Gandhi’s sister Priyanka Gandhi Vadra, who was brought into the campaign as general secretary in charge of eastern Uttar Pradesh in a last-minute gambit, told him that it was not the right time to resign.
“You come up with any proposal you deem fit and we will accept that to restructure the party and strengthen it,” Priyanka was quoted as saying. “You may have reasons to feel the way you do but now is not the time [to resign].”
Senior Congress leader P. Chidambaram is said to have made a particularly impassioned appeal against Gandhi’s resignation.
“Twelve crore people have voted for you, South India believes in you,” one of the leaders quoted Chidambaram as having said. “How can you say you don’t want to remain president?”
The Congress has won just eight more seats this election than its 2014 tally of 44 — of these 52, at least 28 come from South India, 15 from Kerala alone.
According to one of the senior party leaders who spoke to ThePrint, Gandhi’s offer appeared “genuine and serious”.
“Anyone could replace me and doesn’t have to be from one family,” the leader quoted Gandhi as saying.
The party ultimately unanimously rejected Gandhi’s resignation and, instead, authorised him to restructure the party.
The CWC, which met to discuss the party’s future, passed a resolution calling on his “leadership and guidance in these challenging times”.
However, the sources said the Congress president was still adamant on stepping down.
Also read: Rahul Gandhi’s resignation rejected, Congress authorises him to restructure party
Sanction to restructure Congress
According to the sources, heads would roll soon with the CWC authorising the Congress president to restructure the party.
“Many state unit chiefs and general secretaries at the state level could face the heat as the party will fix responsibility for poor performance in their respective states,” said one of the leaders.
Gandhi, the sources added, was upset about the fact that while he had been aggressive on a number of issues and had taken it to people, other senior leaders failed to do that.
“He said if the party takes a stand on an issue, then everyone should follow that, but it was not done so,” one of the sources said.
“At the same time, he also expressed his displeasure over the fact that senior leaders wasted the party’s time and their own energy in getting tickets for their kin,” the source added. “Their own self-interest overrode the party’s interest, Rahul Gandhiji said.”
The Congress, the sources said, was looking at several options to restructure the party, including introducing the concept of working president, but any plan was yet to take final shape.
Also read: Congress is dying. Here’s what could replace it
Why Congress lost
The CWC meeting also involved introspection by leaders to get to the root of the party’s rout.
Among the factors discussed was the rise of nationalistic sentiment, with leaders said to have pointed out how it had overridden even caste calculations. This, they discussed, had been a setback to not just the Congress, but also the SP-BSP-RLD gathbandhan.
The leaders, the sources said, also discussed how the media was controlled by the Modi government and was “forced to show what they wanted” — another factor they believed had affected the Co’s prospects too.
Many leaders also questioned the functioning of the Election Commission. “In some states where the party couldn’t even win a single seat, the role of the EVM was also discussed,” said a source.
Ire was also directed at the party’s publicity campaign, with many leaders questioning the delay in its launch.
A poor communication strategy that didn’t reach the grassroots was blamed for the failure of the Congress’ flagship minimum income support scheme NYAY.
Most leaders, however, applauded the work done by Gandhi and his leadership in running the 2019 campaign.
The issue of the upcoming assembly elections in Haryana and Maharashtra was also discussed.