AT CONG MEET TO TALK ‘COLLECTIVE LEADERSHIP’, SONIA MAY OFFER TO QUIT
A mechanism to lead via ‘collective leadership’ is expected to be spelt out at the Congress Working Committee meeting — scheduled for Monday — underscoring the worst internal crisis in the party in 10 years. Interim President Sonia Gandhi is expected to offer her resignation at the meeting. As many as 23 party members at various levels of seniority are reported to have signed a letter addressed to her.
A mechanism to lead via “collective leadership” is expected to be spelt out at the Congress Working Committee (CWC) meeting — scheduled for Monday — underscoring the worst internal crisis in the party in 10 years. Interim President Sonia Gandhi is expected to offer her resignation at the meeting.
As many as 23 party members at various levels of seniority are reported to have signed a letter addressed to the interim president earlier this month, asking for a collective leadership mechanism. The fault lines created by this letter were felt at a recent meeting of Rajya Sabha members called by Sonia to take stock of the party. At the meeting, the members conveyed they were feeling crippled by lack of leadership. One year of Sonia's “interim presidentship” was to come to an end on August 10.
All those who have ever been felt diminished or insulted in the past by party leader Rahul Gandhi appeared to have banded together to suggest that he should accept his lack of success in leading the party and pass the baton to a committee-like structure, which could take command.
As law minister in the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government in 2013, Kapil Sibal was a perceived victim of a calculatedly impetuous act by Rahul, then an MP, who publicly tore up an Ordinance that protected convicted lawmakers. Last year, Prithviraj Chavan had to fight tooth and nail to seek the party’s endorsement to form a government in Maharashtra in collaboration with the Shiv Sena, arguing that if the Congress did not support the Sena government, the BJP would become impossible to be dislodged from the state. Many of these leaders were the target of a pointed attack by Rahul and Priyanka Gandhi Vadra, who alleged that by favouring kin in giving tickets for the Lok Sabha elections, some of these leaders had themselves scripted the defeat of the party, as most of the candidates lost.
According to top party leaders, a young-versus-old clash was a misnomer for the internal upheaval that the Congress has been facing. However, it was clear that those who saw themselves as Rahul's appointees perceived a threat to their turf from senior leaders.
In the letter, the leaders said the CWC is not “effectively guiding” the party anymore in mobilising public opinion against the NDA government, led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
They termed the CWC meetings “episodic”, adding such meets are convened in reaction to political developments. The CWC should be a deliberative body for setting the national agenda and policy initiatives, they said.
The leaders also said meetings of the Congress Parliamentary Party no longer witness discussions, and have been reduced to the customary address of the chairperson, Sonia Gandhi, where mere obituaries are read out.