The Indian National Congress suffered a devastating defeat in the 17th Lok Sabha Elections. The wounds had not begun to dry, and its president Rahul Gandhi offered to resign, which created a whole new set of chaos among the party members. A few days later, he withdrew the same, and urged the party to find his replacement within a month. The steps taken by the Gandhi family who have mounted their lives on politics, indeed makes for a good soap opera. What they cannot seem to understand, is that to run a democracy, a collective needs to think beyond sycophancy.
The trait to consume power without being rational has been the primary agenda of the one siting on Congress’ throne. Going back to Nehru who came in power post-independence, under the banner of a ruling party chose to ignore the then AICC chief Acharya Kriplani, who suggested him to consult others, and take advice before taking major administrative decisions. And thus began the ideology that the servant would never question the master.
Following her father’s footsteps, Indira Gandhi was also confronted during her tenure, to an extent that she had most of her ministers kicked out from the party. Since then, the party president has never messed with the one who holds the grip in governing.
While things worked back and forth and settled on the lap of Congress, come what may, it followed the same pattern till the tenure of Rajiv Gandhi, until he was assassinated. Sonia, time and again tagged as the outsider and Non-Indian leader took charge as party chief. Then too, the power resided among the chief who had a say in the top most position in Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha. This led to Dr. Manmohan Singh becoming the Prime Minister in 2004.
While there was no opposition that strong, the tables were turned in 2014. The attack on Rahul Gandhi’s personality had reached a laughing point, where even the party seemed to not take him seriously. Playing the nepotism card just as his own family, didn’t work against the ruling party that understood ground politics, and the idea of people power.
2019 saw the debut of Priyanka Gandhi in Uttar Pradesh. Despite her constant waves from vans, to speeches that supposedly reminded the masses of her grandmother, Priyanka was trying to revive a lost cause or a lost party in this case. With the trio still in charge of electing a chief if at all Rahul resigns, Congress still has a lot to learn before locking horns for the next five years.
A resignation will not solve the problem, but can be a baby step towards freeing itself from the Gandhian monopoly. Is the party short of good leaders? Certainly not. The position for a non-Gandhi Congress president needs to be considered for now, something that hasn’t happened since 1998. It’s high time that Congress understands democracy within its party, and stands up for a political ideology that suits a nation and not a family.
