Felt confined but Congress has more room for dissent than BJP, says Kapil Sibal

Kapil Sibal, senior advocate, MP and former union minister, speaks to ThePrint about his decision to quit Congress, his ideology, and what the future holds for him.

File photo of Kapil Sibal addressing a press conference | Photo: ANI

New Delhi: Senior advocate Kapil Sibal told ThePrint that he felt “cribbed and confined” within the Congress party and decided it was time to leave. 

After 30 years of being with the Congress, Sibal, a Member of Parliament and a former union minister, decided to call it quits on 16 May. On 25 May, he made his decision public while filing his nomination to Rajya Sabha as an independent candidate with the support of Akhilesh Yadav’s Samajwadi Party.  His current term in Rajya Sabha ends in July.

“Freedom is the reason I never joined government services or any bureaucracy, because my freedom to speak is very important to me. Whatever I have done, I have been unafraid of the consequences,” he told ThePrint.  “So after 30 years I felt cribbed and confined. I thought a political party was a voluntary organisation, that’s why I had joined [it] in the first place.”

“Here people only speak what the leader wants to listen to. And I can’t ever do that and I’ve never done it. I’m like this even inside courts and the parliament,” he said. 

“But after 30 years, one day I just felt that freedom to be able to speak has finished. Even when I’m in court, there’s a level of appreciation for what you’re standing for, for what you’re saying, in the party that doesn’t happen.”

ThePrint previously reported how Sibal’s exit from the party was planned before the Congress party’s Chintan Shivir brainstorming session in Udaipur earlier this month. Sibal was one of 23 Congress leaders who had written to the Congress in August 2020 demanding organisational overhaul. Among the changes this group demanded was a full-time president as opposed to an interim one, an elected Congress Working Committee (CWC), and Central Election Committee. 

He had called the party on several occasions out thereafter — the last one being in March 2022, just after the Congress did poorly in assembly elections held in Uttar Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Punjab, Goa, and Manipur. On that occasion, Sibal told the press after a CWC meeting that the Gandhis “should step aside from leadership” to give others a chance. He even went on to say that the leadership was living in “cuckoo land” if they couldn’t see the party’s decline in the last eight years.

‘More room for dissent in Congress than the BJP’

Sibal said no party in India had true internal democracy, although he said Congress was more democratic than the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). 

“Even if people didn’t listen, at least we could speak up in the Congress. We were not scared of any action,” he said.  “I can’t say that for the BJP. There nobody dares to speak up against the motion. Except Subramanian Swamy, nobody speaks up their mind, they say what they have been asked to say.”

“In the BJP, one leader is so omnipresent. He has not just bombarded himself in the minds of the people in the country, but also inside his own party. There’s hardly any dissent inside the BJP,” Sibal said.

Leaving the party didn’t mean changing his ideology, he said.

“My main target remains the BJP, always . They have captured all the institutions in this country including the media, CBI [Central Bureau of Investigation] and the ED [Enforcement Directorate], even educational institutions,” he said. 

“This kind of capturing and [mis]usage of such agencies will have major consequences even after decades, because this will destroy the pillars of democracy. I want an inclusive India, and I will do everything in my capacity to fight against this ideology of the BJP.”

‘Modi the manipulator’

Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Sibal said, was a “great manipulator” who understands the majoritarian psyche and knows what emotions he must tap into to gain votes. 

“Today, the entire wealth of this country has been given away to 4-5 people.  The PM is a very talented man but does he not know what he is doing and what the consequences if this will be,” he asked. 

The BJP, he said, was triggering political tensions in the country.  

 “They are constantly raking up issues of faith. But faith and religion will not ensure jobs and education. [It] won’t ensure that there are no stunted children in this country,” he said. “So this party may win elections but they are not doing anything for the country.”

Unleashing Sibal, the poet

So what will he do, now that he’s decided to quit the Congress? He’ll use the time to let loose the poet in him, he said.

“I won’t join any party in the future and will try my best to bring all the opposition together,” he told ThePrint. “But apart from that, I’ll also focus on writing more poems and books about my experiences in life.”  

He feels emotions deeply, especially pain, he said. 

“My first wife Nina and I fell in love at first sight in college, but when I lost her in 2000 to cancer, I understood pain very differently,” he said. “But love decided to come back into my life. My second wife Promila is a lovely lady who supports me at every step in life. So I have understood love also deeply. It’s an emotion central to life and everybody should have love in their life in any form.” 

Where did his love for poetry come from?

“My father fought Manto’s case, so when I was a child every evening, [Saadat Hasan] Manto and Faiz Ahmad Faiz used to do Urdu poetry in my house with my father, so we always had a culture of poetry. I want to pursue that interest more freely now that I’m independent.” 

(Edited by Uttara Ramaswamy)