Rahul Gandhi is making it easy for Amit Shah to walk all over Congress
The Congress high command — president Sonia Gandhi and vice-president Rahul Gandhi — are yet to react to the West Bengal Congress MLAs' act of signing a bond declaring allegiance to the Gandhi family. I genuinely believe that it was not an idea propagated by either of the two Gandhis but the result of the fertile brain of some super enthusiastic sycophants.
According to Congress insiders, the provocation to such a bond could be the recent developments in Arunachal Pradesh, where BJP toppled a Congress majority government by poaching MLAs and in Uttarakhand, where the BJP almost succeeded in overthrowing a Congress government.
It’s obvious that the Congress has accused BJP president Amit Shah of adopting unconstitutional means to destabilise Congress governments.
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| Congress'decision-making process, for the last two years, has remained stuck between Rahul and Sonia. |
But Amit Shah is not the main villain. He is only taking advantage of opportunities presented to him by Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi.
There has always been an allegation that Rahul is inaccessible to most of the party leaders. This is partially true as the Congress vice-president regularly meets grassroots workers at his residence and during his tours to states.
In the last two years, he received more visitors at his residence than his mother Sonia Gandhi did. Of course, the outcome of these meetings remains hugely debatable.
But the problem with Rahul is his reluctance to meet senior leaders and his obsession with process. When dissident leaders of Arunachal Pradesh Congress wanted to meet him, he refused to lend them an ear for over two months. By then the damage had been done.
In Uttarakhand too, the same story was repeated. His standard response to such a request for audience — meet the general secretary in charge, he would solve the issue.
If general secretaries had been in control, there would not have been such a major crisis. Besides, the role played by several general secretaries in instigating such crises has often been discussed in the corridors of Congress headquarters, but the Congress vice-president prefers to remain deaf.
Once a youth Congress leader from Assam narrated an interesting story to me. In an interaction with Youth Congress workers, the Congress vice-president asked them to remain watchful to the actions of their own MLAs and ministers, and protest whenever they felt that these senior leaders were working against the interest of people and party.
Many of them followed Rahul’s words in true spirit and faced the wrath of senior Congress leaders in the state. They tried to contact Rahul Gandhi but it was initially impossible to reach him. When they finally could reach him, the response was curt - follow the process, take your allegations first to state leadership.
This obsession with protocol and process has stymied the party’s growth. When it comes to taking an important decision, Rahul Gandhi directs Congress leaders to Sonia Gandhi, and Sonia advises them to have a word with Rahul. The decision-making process, for the last two years, has remained stuck in this swing between Rahul and Sonia.
In Assam, Rahul Gandhi virtually orchestrated the defeat. The consequence of ignoring the grievances of Himanta Biswa Sarma in Assam has now become part of Congress folklore.
In fact, Sarma’s case exposes one serious flaw in Rahul’s political wisdom — his personal perception and opinions matter more than the political relevance of a leader. Because Sarma was a media baron and a rich politician, Rahul had this notion that the former dissident Congress leader represented the corrupt breed of Indian political leaders.
His idea of a good leader is also odd — someone whose appearance and attire reflects austerity and who can talk more about ideas and less about election-winning strategies. I know of several Congress leaders who dress differently when they go to meet Rahul Gandhi.
But then there have been contradictions. In an informal interaction in Guwahati ahead of the 2014 Lok Sabha polls, Rahul said that he was personally against giving tickets to leaders against whom there have been charges of corruption. The obvious reference was to Ashok Chavan.
The same Rahul Gandhi later made Chavan Maharashtra Congress president. He personally had chosen two of Assam Congress leaders — Rana Goswami and Bhupen Bora — as national secretaries. Rana Goswami’s name has cropped up as one of the political leaders who received calls from Dawood Ibrahim.
It’s important to follow process and protocol, but what’s more important is to be aware of systemic flaws in the process and fix them at the earliest. It has been over 24 hours since West Bengal MLAs signed those bonds, but we still don’t know if the Congress high command supports such actions or not. Instead, they are busy fighting Amitabh Bachchan.
There is a reminder too — Congress is in Opposition in West Bengal and there is no chance that Mamata Banerjee will need to poach Congress MLAs. The bond doesn’t make any political sense at all.