Open Magazine – August 06, 2019

26 5 august 2019

the voters, Congress leaders throughout the country were content

to fall in line; no one bothered to even register that all avenues of

‘inner democracy’ had been choked off. nor was anyone in a posi-

tion to question the role ‘the family’ had come to acquire. There

was an awe-inspiring mantra: party leaders had no say when it

came to the Family and its involvement in the party. no one was

prepared to challenge Sonia Gandhi when it became apparent,

sometime around 2009, that her supreme priority was to ensure

her son’s elevation, first as the Congress president and then, if

possible, as the prime minister of India.

F

oR moST ConGRESS leaders, the idea of a Rahul presi-

dency had a comfortable, tautological ring to it; the pros-

pect of a Rahul premiership was even more intoxicating.

The more cunning among them began pushing and promoting

their sons and daughters, as they correctly sized up Sonia Gandhi’s

own dreams for Rahul.

It was recently disclosed that after the 2014 drubbing, Janardan

Dwivedi, a long-serving general secretary in the All India Con-

gress Committee, had, on September 15, 2014, sent in his resigna-

tion, in the hope that it would provide Sonia Gandhi with a good

enough reason to completely overhaul the Congress hierarchy,

especially revitalise the crucial slate of general secretaries and

secretaries. But Sonia Gandhi was now risk-averse; she was not

going to develop an appetite for taking on the entrenched estab-

lishment politicos. Her priority was not rejuvenation of the Con-

gress; it was elevation of Rahul Gandhi as the organisational boss.

While it was easy to impose Rahul Gandhi on the Congress, the

voters in India were not to be so easily taken in. Somehow Rahul

Gandhi’s quest for power could garner neither the requisite politi-

cal acceptability nor the minimum moral respectability. Twice, in

2014 and 2019, the Idea of Rahul stood comprehensively rebuffed.

By may 23rd, 2019, the Congress leaders resembled very much

TS Eliot’s Hollow Men:

Shape without form, shade without colour

Paralysed force, gesture without motion

now that Rahul Gandhi has walked away, the Congress’ kar-

mic decrepitude has cast its dysfunctional spell on its leaders.

These stuffed men of straw do not know even how to go about

gathering their wits. Even after two months, they dare not pick up

the gauntlet thrown down by the Family to find for themselves

a new mascot.

S

o, WHY HAS there not been a regime change in the

Congress?

For one thing, no one can be sure as to how sincere the

Family is in insisting that it would not provide a ‘president’. many

veterans know that Rahul Gandhi is a complicated man—impet-

pRiyank a gandhi is a geneRal seCRetaRy in ChaRge of ut taR pRadesh,

but Cannot Resist the temptation to pl ay the ‘high Command’

Photograph by aShiSh Sharma