Sonia meets party RS MPS, old vs new debate rages on

nNEWDELHI: An intense old vs new, senior vs new, debate consumed a large part of Congress president Sonia Gandhi’s meeting with the party’s Rajya Sabha MPS on Thursday, with Gandhi even mentioning the need a for a mechanism to improve communication between the two sides.

The meeting witnessed an overwhelming demand by party seniors to bring back Rahul Gandhi as Congress president. The MPS also decided to intensify the fight against the Narendra Modi government over the mismanagement of Covid-19 and the economy, and the handling of the India-china border clash at Galwan. Some leaders suggested honest introspection of the party’s performance in elections and pointed at lack of ideological clarity in many leaders.

But the first interaction between Gandhi and the Rajya Sabha MPS saw some senior leaders including Ripun Bora and Akhilesh Prasad Singh criticizing the promotion of “neta putras” or dynasts of leaders in the party. Some leaders alleged that while these sons of leaders were given more than they deserved , they often betrayed the party.

While Gandhi did not deliver a speech according to people familiar with what happened at the meeting, she said: “Media keeps mentioning that seniors don’t listen to juniors. They should be taken along.’’

She also announced that she was forming a committee that would sort out such communication issues.

In the past six months, the Congress has lost Jyotiraditya Scindia to the BJP and now faces a rebellion by Sachin Pilot. Both Scindia and Pilot have been ministers and have for long been spoke off as the party’s next-gen leaders, but they found themselves marginalised by party oldtimers.

While some of the MPS at the meeting questioned the ability of young leaders to win elections -both Scindia and Pilot were responsible for revival of the party in respective assembly elections -- others struck a more balanced note, the people cited above added.

Abhishek Manu Singhvi, they said, suggested a more democratic process to use young talents in the party.

Rajya Sabha leader of Opposition Ghulam Nabi Azad and leaders such as Digvijay Singh, Shaktisinh Gohil, Rajeev Satav and Neeraj Dangi led the demand for Rahul Gandhi’s return as Congress President. According to one of the people cited above, almost every MP who spoke wanted Rahul Gandhi back as the party chief.

Senior leader Digvijaya Singh said he would not discuss what happened “among Rajya Sabha MPS” but both he and Akhilesh Prasad Singh maintained that the party wants Rahul Gandhi back as president.

Sonia Gandhi was critical about the role of governor s and said the BJP wants to finish off Indian democracy, a reference to Rajasthan governor Kalraj Mishra, and mentioned how the country’s land laws and environment laws are being ignored and misused.