The start of the monsoon session of Parliament on Monday began with the swearing-in of the newly-elected members of the Lok Sabha. This will go on over the next two days before the House elects a new Speaker and a deputy Speaker and then moves on to the official legislative agenda. The opening day of the 17th Lok Sabha was notable also for confirming that Rahul Gandhi is, after all, back in the country. After the election rebuff, he had gone to London, leaving his party in the lurch, without anyone knowing whether or not he would continue to lead it. For the record, he submitted his resignation as party president and is determined not to continue. Elected from Waynand in Kerala, he took oath as member of the Lok Sabha on Monday. Newly-elected Congress MPs too appeared to be in the dark about his intentions, though informally they insisted that he would continue.
It was indicative of the disarray in the party that a senior party leader and former Union Minister Veerappa Moily was quoted in this morning’s papers calling for a ‘major surgery’ in the party. But he too insisted that Rahul Gandhi `alone can lead the party.’ According to him, Rahul continues to be the AICC President and that ‘he has not stepped down.’ Moily said that it was not fair to blame Rahul for the poll debacle since he took over as party chief only in 2017 and needed to be given ample time to prove himself.
Besides, Assembly elections in Jharkhand, Maharashtra and Haryana are due later this year and Rahul needs to put ‘proper people in-charge.’ “Only Rahul can do it,” the senior leader from Karnataka said. In other words, despite Rahul insisting on quitting as party chief, his party is determined not to let him go. The continuing confusion in the Congress has found reflection in several ways. While factionalism has raised its head publicly in key States such as Punjab and Karnataka, Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh, in Parliament it has resulted in the failure of the newly-elected members to elect their leader in the Lok Sabha. In the normal course, if neither Sonia Gandhi nor her son, Rahul, is ready to shoulder the onerous responsibility of leading the party in the Lok Sabha, another member ought to have been named by now. Given that Kerala has sent the biggest single-state Congress contingent of 15 members, including, of course, Rahul himself, someone from the State could be chosen lead the party in the Lok Sabha.
The name of Shashi Tharoor, elected for the third successive term from Thiruvananthapuram, was mentioned in this regard, and he had publicly expressed a desire for holding the prestigious position, but no official word has been heard thus far. Also mentioned was the name of Manish Tiwari, the newly-elected member from Anandpur Sahib in Punjab, but, again, there was no indication of the official thinking on his candidature. Tharoor, incidentally, features as an accused in the charge-sheet filed by the Delhi Police in connection with the mysterious death of his third wife, Sunanda Pushkar. As for Tiwari, the Gandhis are not particularly enamoured of him.
Anyway, given that the more than a month long monsoon session will be dominated by the first budget of Modi 2.0, the largest group on the Opposition benches needs to have a designated leader in place to give purpose and direction to the Opposition voice in Parliament. In one word, the governing family of the Congress needs to huddle together urgently and end the misery of the Congressmen and Congresswomen who seem completely helpless in carrying on without one of its members at the helm of the party. If Rahul thinks that someone in the party will have the character and the courage to come forward and offer himself to replace him as party chief, he is deluding himself.
It is because Congressmen have been so used to being followers of the Family that they have forgotten to walk on their own two feet. Why, then, prolong their and the party’s misery by keeping them in a state of limbo when it is clear that without them their followers will fragment into even more tiny groups than the Congress is at present. This is not to endorse the Congress Dynasty. No, far from it. But to recognise the supine state of its members who singly and collectively have forgotten about self-respect, self-confidence, and, instead, become prisoners of the Gandhi Family. It seems, as of now, it is No Family, No Congress Party.
