Raj Babbar offers to quit, no elevation of Rahul now
The much-anticipated elevation of Congress vicepresident Rahul Gandhi as party chief is expected to be further delayed in the wake of the massive drubbing the party got in the Assembly elections in Uttar Pradesh and Uttarakhand. With voices of dissent within the Congress gaining momentum, party insiders claim any possibility of Rahul Gandhi becoming Congress president now is a distant possibility, though this has been pending for quite some time.
Perhaps sensing the mood in the party, UP Congress chief Raj Babbar offered to quit “taking responsibility” for the poll debacle. Mr Babbar has said: “I take moral responsibility for the party’s defeat in Uttar Pradesh. I was given the responsibility but I could not fulfill it. I could not live up to the expectations. I will do what is required.”
What makes the situation precarious for Rahul Gandhi is that he was actively involved in planning, execution and campaigning during the election. The results, specially in UP and Uttarakhand, have thus raised serious doubts about his leadership capabilities.
Interestingly, Congress MP and general secretary
in charge of Odisha B.K. Hariprasad quit all party posts after the Congress came third in the local body polls in Odisha recently. But when Mr Hariprasad met Rahul Gandhi recently, he was asked to continue.
Mr Babbar too has strongly defended the Congress’ top leadership, saying: “Our national leaders worked hard in five states which went to the polls, including UP. While we failed to win UP, you don’t change party leaders for losses in one or two elections.” What has surprised many is that in Rahul Gandhi’s own parliamentary constituency of Amethi, the party lost all Assembly segments. Some Congress leaders have already started admitting privately that introspection in the party needs to begin from the top. Strangely, in a first for the Congress, a petition on a web portal is doing the rounds that Thiruvananthapuram Lok Sabha MP Shashi Tharoor be made the prime ministerial candidate of the Congress for the 2019 Lok Sabha polls. Even on Twitter, there are surveys being conducted over who should become the new Congress president, with four options, and Rahul Gandhi as one of them. Such discussions on the top post in the Congress has never before been conducted publicly. Rahul Gandhi became Congress vice-president in January 2013, after which the party won the Karnataka Assembly elections in May that year, after which it has lost all subsequent elections. While the Congress did win in Punjab this time, and by a massive margin, the credit for that is given almost entirely to Capt. Amarinder Singh. In these circumstances, Rahul Gandhi’s elevation to the top party post seems a very distant possibility.