Rahul insists on stepping down
Cadre confused, resignations pile up at party president’s office
Sonia Gandhi and Rahul Gandhi pay tributes to Nehru on his death anniversary in New Delhi. PTI
Aditi Tandon
Tribune News Service
New Delhi, May 27
Congress president Rahul Gandhi is said to be adamant on giving up his post despite the Congress Working Committee at a meeting on Saturday rejecting his offer to resign. He has been incommunicado since then, not entertaining appointment requests and leaving the party in a state of flux.
The Congress has received a drubbing in the Lok Sabha elections for a second time in a row. In a repeat of 2014, the party this time won 52 seats whereas it needed 54 to stake claim to the post of Leader of the Opposition in the Lok Sabha.
Rahul is pushing for a non-Gandhi Congress chief. Congress cadres, meanwhile, are confused on the status of their president with resignations piling up in his office and none around to take a call. Punjab Congress president Sunil Jakhar, trounced by BJP’s Sunny Deol in Gurdaspur, has put in his papers. So has his counterparts in Uttar Pradesh, Jharkhand, Odisha, Assam and Karnataka. In a statement, party spokesperson Randeep Singh Surjewala said: “The CWC is the highest decision-making body of the Congress. It is a democratic forum … in this realm, CWC members expressed views at the May 25 meeting, looked at reverses in Lok Sabha elections as an opportunity for radical changes and a complete organisational overhaul for which it authorised Congress president Rahul Gandhi.”
He urged everyone, “including the media”, to respect the sanctity of the closed-door CWC meeting, not fall into the trap of conjectures or speculation and await the calibrated efforts by the Congress towards the “future course of action.”
The course of action, as The Tribune earlier reported, could mean a plan to create collective leadership with a new format where a non-Gandhi could come in as party chief.
Rahul is learnt to have told his colleagues to study ways of implementing his vision of a new Congress even as insiders express the apprehension that the party could crumble under factionalism if Rahul steps down. Many are questioning the timing of the experiment after Rahul himself chose to become party vice-president in 2013, famously quoting his mother Sonia Gandhi as telling him, “Power is poison.” Leaders in private say Rahul knew what he was getting into.
“With elections due in Haryana, Maharashtra, Delhi and Jharkhand, we cannot afford to get into this debate right now.  A discussion (on a non-Gandhi Congress president) at this juncture will demoralise the cadre and make room for heightened factionalism with leaders lobbying for the top job, neglecting the state elections ahead,” cautioned a former UPA minister.
Some leaders say Rahul should remain at the helm, creating a presidium of senior leaders for clarity of vision. But deep down, they are uncomfortable with the prospect of non-Gandhi chief. Even if one is appointed, no one will acknowledge him, they feel. Veterans point to how the Congress disintegrated each time a non-Gandhi asserted himself.
Former Law Minister Ashwani Kumar said, “It is the unanimous view of Congress persons that in the prevailing political context, which has no equivalence in the past, and considering the need for a cohesive Congress to resurrect itself, there is no substitute for Rahul Gandhi as pesident . I sincerely hope that he would reconsider his decision. Only then can he apply the necessary correctives and redefine the party’s role as an effective Opposition necessary for a healthy democracy.”