Later, They Decided

And yet again, the Congress delays its organisational polls to elect a full-time president—this time, till June. Perhaps for the sake of variety, the yawn-inducing suspense over who will take the baton from Sonia Gandhi has a comical twist. Party veterans in the Congress Working Committee (CWC) seem to believe that voters in at least four states and a Union Territory that are due for assembly polls in April-May can be convinced that the Congress is the right choice to lead them, even if the party can’t decide who it must be led by.

After four months of deliberations, the Congress’s Central Election Auth­ority (CEA), headed by Madhus­udan Mistry, recommended to the CWC that elections for the president’s post be held in May. At the CWC, Ghulam Nabi Azad, P. Chidambaram, Anand Sharma and Mukul Wasnik insisted on “immediate elections”. However, the CWC dec­ided to delay the polls till June so that the party can focus on the assembly polls due in West Bengal, Tamil Nadu, Kerala, Assam and Pondicherry. Cong­ress general secretary (organisation) K.C. Venugopal said, “The CWC decided there will be an elected Cong­ress president in June 2021 at any cost”.

Sonia’s interim presidency of the Congress for nearly 18 months has triggered discontent; 23 senior leaders (inc­luding Azad, Sharma, Wasnik and Jitin Prasada) had demanded a swift resolution in August last year. Frustration within other Opposition parties over a rudderless Congress’s inability to lead the charge against the BJP has been growing, feeding rumours that some UPA constituents want Sonia to abdicate the bloc’s chairpersonship.

Curiously, at the CWC meet, Wayanad MP Rahul Gandhi, who had resigned from the post after the Lok Sabha rout and insisted on a non-Gandhi replacement, impressed upon ending the stalemate. Rahul played mediator when Ashok Gehlot and Ambika Soni launched into a tirade against reform-seeker Sha­rma and others, who pressed for immediate and simultaneous polls for electing the party chief and CWC members. He then, say sources, urged his party to have the election so that “this chapter can be closed and we can move on”.

Sources confirm that while Rahul is yet to give any indication of his willingness to helm the party, he has shed his insistence on choosing a non-Gandhi for the job. A confidante of the party’s first family says that efforts are on to “increase Rahul’s visibility and public interactions” and that “he will be the face of the party’s campaign in the ass­embly polls”. A packed campaign itinerary is being planned for Rahul in each of the poll-bound states. A day after the CWC meet, he took off for a three-day tour of Tamil Nadu. Interim party chief Sonia is unlikely to campaign owing to ill-health and risks posed by the pandemic—she hasn’t campaigned in nearly four years. The build-up, Congress ins­iders say, is similar to the months leading to Rahul’s first election as the party president in January 2017, which had seen him campaign aggressively against the BJP in the December 2016 Gujarat assembly polls.

Party leaders lobbying for a full-time leadership remain discontented. While Kapil Sibal has been vocal about the Congress doing little to set its house in order, several of his co-signatories to that letter say their frustration is growing. The reform-seekers have another five months to sulk. Voters in poll-bound states may not be as patient.