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With Rahul Gandhi as president who will be part of new Congress order?

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Venkatesh Kesari
Venkatesh KesariNov 21, 2017 | 18:50

With Rahul Gandhi as president who will be part of new Congress order?

With Rahul Gandhi set to become the unopposed Congress president, the key issue is who would be his political secretary.

Questions on whether he would continue the current arrangement and work with Ahmed Patel, who is perhaps the longest serving political secretary to Congress chief Sonia Gandhi, or bring his own trusted person are natural.

The answer to this would emerge in the months ahead that are crucial for the grand old party with Assembly elections in Karnataka, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and Chhattisgarh scheduled for next year and the Lok Sabha polls to be held in early 2019.

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A dip in the fortunes of Ahmed Patel, popularly known as Bhai in political circles, has been seen since the rise of Rahul as Congress vice-president. But it is equally true that the young leader had to fall back on the trusted aide of Sonia whenever things went wrong. Earlier this year, Patel silently worked behind the scenes when the tie-up with the Samajwadi Party was being unstuck at the last minute ahead of the Uttar Pradesh elections.

The post of political secretary has assumed greater importance for the Congress ever since the party took the coalition route to check the BJP-led NDA. The post is still important as the Congress is looking at alliances after the Narendra Modi juggernaut virtually wiped it out in the last Lok Sabha polls.

The post of the political secretary, made all the more powerful under the prevailing circumstances, had helped the Congress for 10 long years from 2004 to 2014 not only at the national-level but also in states like Maharashtra, Kerala, Jammu and Kashmir and partly in Andhra Pradesh.

Rahul Gandhi, who worked under the shadow and protection of mother Sonia Gandhi for over 10 years, will have to build his own team of trusted leaders who are effective in winning elections as well.

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Currently, he is relying on youth leaders such as Sachin Pilot, Jyotiraditya Scindia, Rajeev Satav, Deepender Singh Hooda, Ravneet Singh, Milind Deora, Gaurav Gogoi, Manish Tiwari, Salman Soz, Ajay Maken, KC Venugopal, Sushmita Dev etc.

Most of them are the products of dynasty. In fact, some of them already hold positions in the party and are members of Parliament. But whether they can defeat the BJP in their home states or lead the Congress to victory is yet to be seen.

If insiders are to be believed, of the 14 All India Congress Committee (AICC) general secretaries about half a dozen could be replaced or marginalised gradually. Secretaries and general secretaries are already being seen as part of Rahul's team, the insiders said, adding that leaders who have crossed 65 years of age would be slowly sidelined.

P Chidambaram, Kapil Sibal, Anand Sharma, Dr Shashi Tharoor, Abhishek Manu Singhvi would continue to play an important role in Parliament as they are not seen as leaders of the organisation. But Ghulam Nabi Azad (leader of Opposition in the Rajya Sabha), Kamal Nath (senior-most member in the current Lok Sabha and AICC general secretary), Mallikarjun Kharge (leader of Congress Party in the Lok Sabha) are active both within the organisation and Parliament.

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Senior leaders such as AK Antony, Dr Karan Singh, Shivraj Patil, Mohsina Kidwai, RK Dhawan and others could play an advisory role. The Gandhi scion, who will be the sixth member of this family to lead the party after Motilal Nehru, Jawaharlal Nehru, Indira Gandhi, Rajiv Gandhi and Sonia Gandhi, would also have to decide on the role of former chief ministers Bhupinder Singh Hooda, Sheila Dikshit and others who are still active in politics.

Former chief minister and AICC general secretary in-charge of the party affairs in Gujarat, Ashok Gehlot, would be back in his home state Rajasthan after December 18 as he is a strong claimant for the chief minister's post. Another former chief minister and AICC general secretary Digvijaya Singh is currently undertaking Narmada Yatra across his home state Madhya Pradesh. He has virtually detached himself from the AICC.

Rahul has to rebuild the organisation from scratch in states like Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh, Odisha and revive the party in West Bengal, Assam, and Jharkhand before the Lok Sabha polls. In between, he has to lead the party in Karnataka, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and Chhattisgarh going to polls next year.

Senior leaders insist that the Congress president's post is a tough responsibility. It is a 24x7 job without any holidays or breaks. The Congress chief cannot hold anybody accountable for a failure in any state. They draw attention to why Sonia Gandhi succeeded in leading the Congress for 19 years because she relied on her team in good and bad days.

The Congress does not have a Margdarshak Mandal and therefore it would be a challenging job for Rahul to manage veterans who had worked with Indira Gandhi, Rajiv Gandhi and Sonia.

Rahul's new-found prominence not only on the social media but also the political landscape as the challenger to Prime Minister Narendra Modi is being derided by the saffron bhakts despite the Congress leader virtually setting the agenda in poll-bound Gujarat.

If Rahul has to prove his detractors wrong, he has to manage his men with tact, toil and tolerance. This would help him make the Congress a strong war machine to counter Modi and BJP chief Amit Shah, known to be the hardest working leaders currently. History would otherwise brand him as a "failed leader".

Last updated: November 21, 2017 | 18:50
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