(Rana Ayyub is an award-winning investigative journalist and political writer. She is working on a book on Prime Minister Narendra Modi which will be published later this year.)
Former Delhi Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit who kept the Congress in power for three terms in the capital came out strongly against Ajay Maken this month. In a public statement, Ms Dikshit said, "I pity him... that's all I can say... Maken was the campaign head, it should have been aggressive, he should have conveyed the work done by party. He lost focus and never took us along."
She added, "Those remarks (Maken's personal comments against Ms Dikshit which included allegations of misgovernance) came back to hurt him... and not just him, they hurt the party too... Every family or party goes through a generational shift... it's normal... but were those remarks needed before an election?"
The Dikshit- Maken spat may have become flagrantly public but there is nothing to suggest that the party's infamous "HighCommand" was not aware of the internal rumblings of dissatisfied party workers. The same High Command was locked into arrogant inaction when informed by party members of theemergence of Arvind Kejriwal's Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) as a force to reckon with, or regional outfits like the MIM eating intoits vote-share in Maharashtra.
In the last one week, much has been made about Rahul Gandhi's sabbatical. Those close to him call it an ultimatum by the junior Gandhi to his mother who refused to see the 'treachery' by those close to her. Others simply scoff at the entire episode - "Let him take a break for good. Save us the constant torture"
Amidst all this is the lone Congress worker who, debacle after debacle, holds up placards at the party's headquarters, asking for Priyanka Gandhi Vadra to rescue the party for the political wasteland that critics say it has turned into.
Vice President Rahul Gandhi attempted a "Do you hear me?" moment in 2013 when, in a scene straight out of a film script, he tore the controversial ordinance that was to negate the Supreme Court verdict on convicted lawmakers. Terming it as "complete nonsense", he said, "What our government has done is wrong." This was the classic rebellion by the prodigal against the two power centres in the party -his mother and Prime Minister Manmohan Singh who was then on a foreign visit.
A senior Congress leader who claims to be close to the junior Gandhi commented "Rahul could not work with these dalals (middlemen) who surround her mother. They have misled her and sullied the image of the party in the public. She believes that these leaders have displayed political acumen in the past. He had to leave. Now it's up to her to cleanse the party of its dalals and sins".
Both Singh and Scindia addressed a joint rally seeking accountability of the ruling party in Madhya Pradesh. In almost a year, this was the first time an aggressive Congress Party was taking on an issue making its way to news debates. But like most issues, there was absolute silence from the Congress' top two leaders; a similar silence was maintained when many attacked the Modi government for allowing religious intolerance. Rahul Gandhi, sources said, who had accused the BJP of using communalism for electoral profit, wanted senior party leaders to launch a sustained campaign against the government for allegedly inflaming religious tension.
"In the absence of the Left, the Congress could have galvanized support for itself by replenishing its political strategy, by hearing the voices from the ground, by focusing its energy in the states, but there seems to be an unwillingness to listen. It feels claustrophobic to be a Congress worker in these times," said a youth Congress leader.
Some in the party believe that it's not too late for the party to spring a surprise, to remove the power brokers, and push reforms and a clean management within the party.
Can Sonia Gandhi hear the Congress? Not everyone can register their protest by taking some time off.
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