Congress Leadership Debate Rages As CMs And Senior Leaders Back Sonia Ahead Of Monday's Meet

On March 5, 1998, with an overwhelming majority of Congress leaders wanting then party chief Sitaram Kesri to relinquish the post so that Sonia Gandhi could be sworn-in, a meeting of the Congress Working Committee was summoned to discuss the leadership question.

The blueprint of the coup had been finalised in the preceding days in secretive meetings between party leaders. When the CWC finally met, party veterans Jitendra Prasada, Sharad Pawar and Ghulam Nabi Azad urged Kesri to step down and invite Sonia Gandhi to assume the Congress presidency. Kesri bluntly refused and left the meeting. Moments later, Kesri found himself ousted from the presidency as the CWC, in his absence, passed a resolution asking Sonia to take the reins. After raising the bogey of Sonia’s foreign origin, Pawar left the Congress in 1999 to form the Nationalist Congress Party. In November 2000, Prasada challenged Sonia in the party’s presidential polls – the last time the Congress witnessed an election for its top office – and suffered a crushing defeat.

Sonia went on to be the longest serving party president in the 135 years of Congress’s history before she decided to pass the leadership baton to her son, Rahul Gandhi, in December 2017. But then, on August 10 last year, Sonia was forced to return to the top party office as the interim chief when Rahul decided to step down taking moral responsibility for leading the Congress to decimation in the Lok Sabha polls. Having completed a year as interim party chief earlier this year, Sonia now stares at a near replay of the intra-party machinations that had propelled her to the Congress presidency for the first time – 22 years ago.

 In an ironic turn of events, 23 party leaders wrote to Sonia earlier this month. She reportedly received the letter on August 12, two days after completing a year as interim chief and overseeing the end of Sachin Pilot’s rebellion against Rajasthan chief minister Ashok Gehlot. In the letter, the leaders demanded an organisational overhaul and “full-term, effective leadership” of the party. Though the signatories to the letter include party leaders, young and old, from across the country, a few names stand out as surprising.

Congress sources say among the key “architects of the rebellion for reform” was Ghulam Nabi Azad, the party’s most visible Muslim face, leader of Opposition in the Rajya Sabha and former chief minister of Jammu and Kashmir. He is the same person who, over two decades ago, had played a key role in effecting the transition from Kesri to Sonia. The signatories also include Jitin Prasad, son of the late Jitendra Prasad. The other leaders who took the initiative to reach out to their party colleagues urging them to sign the letter, say Congress sources, were Anand Sharma and Kapil Sibal.

That there has been rampant unease within the party over its failure to decisively settle the leadership question since Rahul resignation and boost the morale of party workers through visible grassroots activity that could help the Congress win elections and retain states against a power-usurping BJP is a known fact. Several Congress leaders, including Shashi Tharoor and Manish Tewari – both signatories of the letter – have raised these issues repeatedly. However, the timing of the letter being leaked, say party sources, is “mischievous and reeks of a conspiracy” against the Nehru-Gandhi family. “The letter had been written a fortnight ago. There had also been rumours about its existence though the party denied it officially. On Saturday, organization general secretary (KC Venugopal) announced that the CWC will meet on Monday and then on Sunday this letter is published,” says a party veteran close to Sonia.

As the contents of the letter – though it asserted for the Nehru-Gandhis as being integral to the party’s leadership – created a predictable storm, its signatories refused to comment on record about the raging controversy. Speaking anonymously to Outlook, at least five of the signatories claimed they had raised the issues “in good faith” and that they had “full faith in the leadership of Sonia and Rahul” but added that “some others (who signed the letter) may hold a different view because of the current situation of the party”. Yet, some other signatories also told Outlook that they “echoed the views of many other Congress leaders who did not wish to sign the letter but will support the demand for collective leadership when the time comes”. The claim signalled that there’s more to the mutiny than simply the letter. By Sunday evening, this contention seemed true to some extent with die-hard loyalists like former Union minister Mani Shankar Aiyar and Anil Shastri, son of former prime minister Lal Bahadur Shastri, also claiming that the letter raises pertinent issues and that the party high command is "not at all accessible".

However, this is where the script of the current drama differs from that of what had played out ahead of the CWC meeting of March 1998. Unlike Kesri, who rejected the idea of stepping down despite knowing that he had lost the support of a majority of party leaders and workers alike, Sonia has informed some of her close aides that she will announce her decision to quit the presidency at Monday’s CWC meet despite still enjoying the backing of a substantial chunk of the Congress rank and file.

As reports of Sonia offering to resign at Monday’s CWC meet spread, so did the demands from Congress chief ministers like Amarinder Singh, Bhupesh Baghel, Ashok Gehlot and a large number of senior party leaders for her to stay on. Adding to this chorus for Sonia was the expected rider – sometimes a standalone demand, particularly from the younger lot of party leaders – that should she refuse to accept a full-term presidency, the baton must be handed back to Rahul.

In identical letters, a large number of party MPs – including leader of the Congress in the Lok Sabha, Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury and K. Suresh – urged Sonia to stay on as Congress president or hand over the presidency to Rahul. These MPs asserted that the signatories of the other letter were motivated by vested interests.

Congress sources tell Outlook that Sonia had anyway made up her mind to step down “sooner than later” and was hopeful of Rahul changing his mind about taking the responsibility again. “When she completed a year as interim chief, she told some leaders that she would not want to continue in the post and a full-term president was imperative… she wanted Rahul to take charge again, especially since he had personally been leading the offensive, often without support of party seniors, against the Narendra Modi government. She was likely to have made her intention clear at the CWC even if this letter had not been leaked to the media,” says a senior party functionary.

Congress leaders say that several of the 23 signatories are members of the CWC and that they had attended all meetings of the decision making body during the past four months but never raised the issues they have asserted in the letter. The leaders who wish Sonia to continue or for Rahul to take up the presidency also insist that Azad, Sharma, Tharoor, Tewari, Prasad and several of the other signatories were “raising the banner of revolt using the garb of their concern for the party but they harbour ill feelings because of various decisions taken by the high command.”

“Azad hasn’t got any assurance of being re-nominated to the Rajya Sabha and the current political situation in J&K also has nothing of significance for him. He and Sharma have been unhappy about the Congress sending Mallikarjun Kharge to the Rajya Sabha in the recent biennial polls. Tharoor and Tewari believe they, and not Adhir, should have been named party leader in the Lok Sabha. Prasad has been unhappy at the growing importance of UP Congress chief Ajay Kumar ‘Lallu’ in Priyanka Gandhi’s circle… most other signatories have some or the other grouse,” a party leader tells Outlook.

Whatever be the motivations of the 23 signatories – or of those who are now vociferously batting for Sonia and Rahul; the fact remains that the ongoing war of words proves, yet again, of the dire need for the Congress leadership to set its house in order. By offering to step down, Sonia may have signalled to the dissenters that if they have a better leadership module, they are free to put it in place – or at least suggest it to the CWC. Her son, who believes ‘power is poison’ has illustrated his commitment to the idiom – the high cost of which is being paid by the Congress – but sources say he may still be convinced to take the reins of the party if the CWC and the organization in general agree to his roadmap for a Congress revamp.

The CWC meet tomorrow will certainly witness some feisty exchanges but will it, like that historic meeting of 1998, also show the Congress a new path for recovery? If Sonia and Rahul prevail but fail to address the concerns raised by the dissenters – remember, the Nehru-Gandhi sycophants haven’t contested the merits behind the issues raised in the letter, only the motivation of the authors – they will only delay their own humiliation by party colleagues.