Chintan Shivir fallout: Hardik Patel ejects to safety

Even as Congress loyalists were still pondering over the outcome, if any, of the three-day Chintan Shivir in Udaipur, the party leadership was hit in its solar plexus, that is in case it still has one, by the Gujarat Congress leader Hardik Patel. His resignation should not have come as a surprise, at least to everyone outside the charmed circle of Rahul Gandhi. The young Patidar leader had given enough hints in recent days of his disenchantment with the party leadership. Even after he removed all signs of association with the party from his social media account, the leadership did not bestir itself into action.

In 2019, Patel was personally entrusted by Rahul with the onerous task of reviving the Gujarat Congress. It did not take him long to discover that the long-entrenched leaders in the Pradesh Congress would not only not cooperate but actually create hurdles in his way. Repeated appeals to Rahul for help proved of no avail. He felt suffocated, finding himself trapped in a party that had lost its will to renew and re-energise itself with the changing times. Goodwill earned spearheading the Patidar agitation was now in jeopardy. It helped that with an eye on the coming assembly election later this year, the BJP was more than willing to welcome him into its fold. Anyone other than the lotus-eaters of the Congress could have sensed the incoming Hardik blow when he publicly praised the decision-making process of the BJP. The BJP was decisive and proactive; by implication, the Congress was weak and wavering, afraid to take tough decisions. On Wednesday, in his resignation letter, Hardik took several digs at Rahul whom he held responsible for the Congress’s poor state. “Our leader was abroad when he was needed in India during critical times…” Or “top leaders were distracted by their mobile phones” and “the Gujarat Congress leadership was more interested in ensuring chicken sandwiches for them…” Hardik had first come into prominence spearheading a protest agitation for reservations for the economically weaker in the Patidar community. He joined the Congress on the eve of the 2019 parliamentary poll. His departure on the eve of the assembly polls indicated the disarray in the Congress.

The Chintan Shivir does not seem to have induced a sense of enthusiasm in the party ranks. Given how the leadership question was brushed aside under the carpet while relatively minor issues such as the multiple terms of party functionaries or the repeated re-nomination of defeated poll candidates were highlighted. The elephant in the room was the multiple failures of the Gandhis to win elections. But it went unnamed and unmentioned all through the three days of the Shivir. Small wonder then, budding leaders like Hardik are unready to fritter away their future in a party that is stuck in a time warp, refusing to break free from the stranglehold of the Family which is now more a liability than an asset. In the recent past, several relatively young leaders like RPN Singh, Jitin Prasada, and Jyotiradtiya Scindia had joined the BJP, all supposedly close to Rahul Gandhi. Maybe the proximity strengthened the resolve to quit the party. Hardik is the latest to head towards the BJP. The Congress needs to do some more ~chintan~ why young leaders with a whole life ahead of them are leaving the party. As for the BJP, it may bolster its support among the Patidars who were beginning to stray away from the party after decades of loyal supporters.