"Rahul Gandhi has changed the culture of our party. This is not the Congress party I joined. He has imposed a cancel culture on the Congress," a former member of Team RG said to me, expressing what is supposedly a spreading disillusionment with the 50-year-old's leadership.
Over a year after the Congress, led by RG, was eviscerated in the general election, the crisis in the party shows no sign of ending. And the talk within the outfit of RG returning as President is causing a wave of trepidation among a large section of members. To understand why, I spoke to a cross-section of leaders, ranging in age from 40 to nearly 80.
The leaders are divided by ambition - the infamous Old Guard vs Young Turks clash in the Congress - but they are in agreement on one point with different degrees of concern - RG just does not listen. It is his either his way or you can take a hike - he shrugs his shoulders and it's case dismissed. Case-in-point: his recent controversial statement made to the Youth Congress while the party was inflamed by Sachin Pilot's revolt. "Leaders will come and go. We will make space for you."
The other worry is RG's gauntlet thrown openly to the party - his newly-minted Modi Challenge or the degree to which you personally attack Prime Minister Narendra Modi. This is now the key RG test which he feels the entire Congress leadership has failed. It is a cause backed heavily by sister Priyanka Gandhi Vadra. "My brother fought alone. None of you supported his attack on Modi," she has told senior leaders of the party while post-morteming the party's failures. RG has internalised this and made it the hallmark of his politics, perhaps because Modi and the BJP have made vicious personal attacks on the Gandhi family and destroyed RG's image with the industrial production and spread of Pappu jokes (they caricature RG as the feckless Pappu).
"RG is right. We should all attack the Modi government and its most visible symbol, the PM himself, but what about those of us who like to raise issues? I don't want to make personal attacks on a PM who enjoys wide personal popularity and who seizes every chance to play victim. RG says things like "Chowkidar chor hai". I may not say it but we have mercenaries in our party who will take it to the next level of personal abuse just to curry favour with him. And he supports them and thinks we are useless," a Congressman said to me.
Rahul Gandhi at a rally (file photo)
Another fundamental gripe of Congress leaders is forget about 2014 and the reasons for its defeat then, no honest introspection has happened about the far more recent debacle of 2019. While UPA 2 is being used as an alibi for the party's failure by Team RG, the Congress at large still does not understand what has led to its decline or what indeed the party stands for anymore. A leader on the verge of jumping ship said, "Our arm is falling off, yet we keep saying we don't have gangrene. Why can't honest introspection happen?" With much bitterness, he adds, "You think I haven't told RG? I have, in much franker detail. And he simply said 'I don't agree with you'. And then ghosted me. No calls, no meetings."
A leader who was a minister in both UPA governments says "RG now has a bunch of leaders who are virtually the Antifa (a protest movement comprising of autonomous groups affiliated by their militant opposition to fascism), they shout down any opposing thought on social media. The Congress is a political party, a vehicle to win elections not be a shrill Antifa counterpart in India. We still have a 20 percent vote share across India We can't reduce ourselves to a fringe from the mainstream we used to occupy. So if I speak about Dalits, the RG bunch will say my contribution is cancelled because you can only speak for the Dalits if you are one."
Rajeev Satav, Rajya Sabha member and current RG favourite who set off the debate blaming the UPA2 government for the public's antipathy to the Congress himself is a dynast - his mother Rajnitai Satav was a minister in the Congress government in Maharashtra. So leaders are clear it is not about Dynasty versus Newbies, but that makes no clearer what exactly RG is pushing as the party line.
Modi and RG have a lot in common. Modi took the BJP, a cadre-based party with fierce inner party democracy and transformed it in to a Special Purpose Vehicle for himself. Since he wins elections with irrefutable power, the party has gone along with his vision. RG is trying to do the same but given that he lost even his own family seat in Amethi, some in the party are resisting - however tacitly.
(Swati Chaturvedi is an author and a journalist who has worked with The Indian Express, The Statesman and The Hindustan Times.)
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