Will power talk stir Congress?

It is for the Congress to decide if it needs to create a particular position. No one can therefore question Rahul Gandhi being formally declared Congress vice-president. Mr Gandhi will now officially be second-in-command, next in the hierarchy only to his mother Sonia Gandhi, the Congress president. It just looks a shade unprepossessing, that’s all, to keep two key positions in a single family.

Not that this was necessary. The young Mr Gandhi was in any case the man to look up to after the party chief. Besides the much talked about “dynasty” principle that worked in his favour to give him a leg up and make him a general secretary rightaway, Mr Gandhi also worked very hard in the last nine years, making even critics say he is a reluctant bridegroom at the wedding. And, increasingly, he began to assume more responsibilities. Until recently, when he was party general secretary, his fellow general secretaries all but reported to him. So the Congress scion’s day-today work is unlikely to change.

Whatever its other failings, the Congress — unlike many parties — is known to maintain subtleness. For this reason alone, Mr Gandhi’s elevation was unnecessary. The Jaipur “Chintan Baithak” was arranged so that the Congress may, in an atmosphere of intra-party openness, mull over policies and deficiencies in the organisation in the last lap of the five-year term of this government. All of that has been overshadowed by Mr Gandhi’s new appointment.

It might have been better by far to confine the news coming out of Jaipur to party and policy-related issues. If for inner political reasons, the Congress was certain making Mr Gandhi party vice-chief would earn it dividends, this could have been done separately. Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi had made Arjun Singh vice-president after the latter was made to give up the Chief Minister’s position in Madhya Pradesh. This was done through a routine announcement and Mr Arjun Singh kept that position only briefly as he was given fresh responsibility to infuse dynamism into the Punjab peace process.

Rahul Gandhi no doubt knows that it is not high-sounding posts but efficacy on the ground is what counts in the end. His emotional speech in Jaipur also shows he knows that power has not been used to give people their due. And that is a positive point for the Congress and the country.