Why Ghulam Nabi Azad Said first Congress jodo then, Bharat jodo? Almost one month after Mallikarjun Kharge became the chief of Congress in a farcical election, Ghulam Nabi Azad, the former Congress leader, in an interview, advised the party to unite its members first before embarking on Bharat Jodo Yatra. The occasional disagreements have been turning into full-blown internal tussles within the party for quite a few years now. Let’s find out how correct it was when Ghulam Nabi Azad says Congress jodo, Bharat Jodo in alleging that the party needs urgent repair work.
Dynastic Politics: The Curse of Congress
The hunger for power is intoxicating. This is specifically true for the Gandhi family. The Nehru-Gandhi family has kept on controlling the party for 40 years. Sonia Gandhi, who became the Congress chief in 1998, remained Congress president till 2022 (barring the period between 2017 and 2019, during which Rahul Gandhi was the party president). Even though Congress lost spectacularly in the 2014 elections, Sonia Gandhi remained at the top – only to lead Congress from one failure to another. Even when Dr Manmohan Singh was the Prime Minister, Sonia Gandhi tried to interfere with the independent work of the government.
Now that the party is not in power, the Gandhi family still tries to remain at the helm of Congress. And this is the root cause of all the problems. While the leaders close to the Gandhis have remained in the party despite underperforming, Congress largely ignores the young leaders of new India. The corruption in the party is a result of this consolidation of power among the Gandhis and their loyalists. The ordinary citizens of India are sick and tired of this corruption and this lack of recognition of the hard-working young members of the party.
Even Mallikarjun Kharge – the new Congress President, is seen as a Gandhi loyalist, which is why the core party members opposed Shashi Tharoor’s decision to compete in the internal presidential election. And Kharge won the election as expected.
Jaiveer Shergill’s Resignation Letter Aptly Sums Up the State of Congress
The resignation letter written by former Congress Spokesperson Jaiveer Shergill aptly summarise the problems inside the grand old party of Congress. Shergill, who joined Congress in 2014 and was the ‘young face’ of the party, complained in his letter that the decision-makers were blissfully unaware of the ground realities. Mr Shergill highlighted the communication issues in the party – which a significant number of former Congress members have highlighted. It seems Rahul Gandhi and Priyanka Gandhi don’t have time for the actual foot soldiers who lead the party on the front. Case in point – way back in 2020, despite knowing that Sachin Pilot was not happy with his position within the party, the Gandhis did not care to meet him.
Jaiveer Shergill, in his resignation letter, pointed out two burning issues that are eating Congress from the inside –
- Sycophancy among the higher-rung leaders
- Lack of knowledge about the ground reality
And these two issues are perhaps the biggest reasons behind the disintegration of Congress. No matter how many Bharat Jodo Yatras Rahil Gandhi embarks on, if these two issues are not addressed, Congress will disintegrate like a house of cards.
Every time Congress won the assembly elections in Rajasthan, Gehlot became the CM. However, the local leaders never favoured Gehlot and were disappointed when he became the CM for the first time. It is only because of his close proximity to the Gandhi family that he alone got the chance to be the Chief Minister.
Back from 2018
In 2018, even though Sachin Pilot’s hard work enabled Congress to win Rajasthan, Gehlot became the CM thanks to his ‘friendship’ with the Gandhis. He is now too powerful to be commanded not to contest the 2023 election to be held in Rajasthan. If he doesnot contest for the upcoming state legislative assembly election, he can make trouble for Congress in Rajasthan – as we saw last year. Sachin Pilot, on the other hand, is gearing up for his own yatra – he will be campaigning in the Jat and Rajput belts of Rajasthan. It seems that the Rajasthan Congress unit is standing on the brink of a disaster. And the situation has become so critical only because of the issue of sycophancy. Despite calls for removing the Gandhis from the affairs, Gehlot kept backing Rahul and Sonia, maybe because he had this agenda of staying in power in Rajasthan.
Jaiveer Shergill is right in claiming that the upper leadership in Congress has lost touch with the ground reality. This has been true for quite some time now. The people of the country are moving to support newer politicians who are ambitious enough to lift the quality of their life. But the Congress party, it seems, is not ready to say goodbye to the leaders of the past. One of the reasons why Jyotiraditya Scindia left the party is the fact that he felt embarrassed when the state Congress government did not fulfil the promise of waiving off the farm loans. On the other hand, the party was blissfully unaware of the political ambitions that young politicians within the party had. No young politician in the party ever got the deserving respect.
Congress Is Broken In Almost Every State
When Ghulam Nabi Azad talked about Congress Jodo, he wasn’t exaggerating one bit. Congress units in almost every state are in a tattered condition, with infighting, resignations and party switching becoming almost a daily affair. moreover, Why Ghulam Nabi Azad resigned from Congress? Why it is good news for BJP?
Broken Congress In Telangana
Six years ago, Telangana Congress got some much-needed power-up when members of the Telugu Desam party switched to Congress. However, now it seems that not all is well inside Telangana Congress. Many senior Congress leaders like Uttam Reddy, Jagga Reddy, Bhatti Vikramarka etc., are of the opinion that those new members who defected from other parties have been given more priority in the Pradesh Congress Committee. This, in turn, ruffled the feathers of those comparatively new members who claim that they have been working diligently within the party with strict adherence to party ideology. Yet they are treated as outsiders. 13 such leaders resigned in December 2022. Once again, the root of the fracture seems to be the tussle between old and young – senior and new party members.
Rift In Karnataka Congress
Meanwhile, Congress in Karnataka is also experiencing a fight of egos between former chief minister Siddaramaiah and the current state Congress chief, DK Shivakumar. Both of these senior Congress leaders have the ambition of becoming the CM of the state. Both of them have loyalists to back them.
Interestingly, the Bharat Jodo Yatra itself caused some rift within the party when they ignored the former Karnataka Pradesh Congress Committee chief RV Deshpande. The management of the yatra excluded him in a shocking turn of events.
Congress Leaders Seem To Be Afraid of Shashi Tharoor In Kerala
There is a rift between Shashi Tharoor and the central Congress leadership. During the Congress presidential election, it became almost clear that the Gandhis did not want Tharoor to become the Congress president. Charge, an 80-year-old loyalist, was always the first choice. Why? Because the Gandhis knew that he would always listen to what the Gandhis said (remember the Manmohan Singh government?). That would not have been possible if Shashi Tharoor had become the Congress chief. After Shashi Tharoor lost the sham election, he tried to put on the mask of “everything is okay.” However, he obviously is not happy with the overall state of affairs.
All Is Not Well In Other States As Well
- Chhattisgarh- where the Congress is still in power – seems to be experiencing a rekindling of enmity between Chief Minister Bhupesh Baghel and TS Singh Deo. Deo and Baghel, would share the tenure of the post of CM. That did not happen. Deo has now resigned from the Panchayat and Rural Development department.
- In Goa, 8 out of 11 Congress MLAs switched to BJP. The defectors included heavyweights like former CM Digambar Kamat and Michael Lobo, who was Congress selected as the leader of the opposition.
- And, of course, we all know the political drama between Navjot Siddhu and Amarinder Singh in Punjab.
Confucius said, “To put the nation in order, we must first put the family in order…” The Congress family is not in order anywhere. From Kashmir to Kanyakumari, infighting, egotistical power plays and self-preservation fractured every unit of the party. Rahul Gandhi’s yatra is commendable. But it will all be in vain if Congress itself remains in existential crisis.
