On 14 March 1998, the Congress brought in Sonia Gandhi as its president to save the party from imminent dissolution. The Gandhi surname was seen as a savior – even seven years after the assassination of former Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi, it had electoral parity across India. Since then, Sonia has been the pivot of Congress politics, while her children Rahul and Priyanka joined the center of power in 2004 and 2019 respectively. Actually, for the first time in the history of Congress, three Gandhis are now active in politics together. It should have strengthened the hold of the family over the party. Instead, on March 13, exactly 22 years after Sonia made her debut, the Congress chief was offering to completely evacuate the family. “If there is a problem with the three of us, we are ready to sacrifice anything. We are very clear that the party comes first, and no one is bigger than the party,” he told the Congress Working Committee, the highest decision-making body of the party. Committee (CWC).
This offer of sacrifice, not the first from the Gandhi family, came amid a growing discourse that the family should take a back seat to save the party from being wiped out from India’s political landscape. Since 2014, the Gandhi family has presided over a series of electoral defeats, both at the national level and in the states. In the last two Lok Sabha elections, the Congress could not go beyond double digits in the House of 543. The number of states ruled by it has grown to four—Rajasthan and Chhattisgarh on its own and Maharashtra and Jharkhand as junior partners in coalition governments—down from 13 in 2014. Just three days before the CWC meeting, the party suffered a humiliating defeat in assembly elections in five states, including Punjab, where it was in power.
As expected, the CWC requests Sonia to continue as interim president until organizational elections are held later this year and asks her to make necessary organizational changes to meet political challenges (Similar Resolution 2020 was also passed in). However, this display of faith is limited to Sonia. Apart from the ginger group popularly known as G23, many Congress stalwarts, who have openly called for organizational change and accountable leadership, are wary of letting Rahul and Priyanka run the party – either in official positions or as de facto chiefs.
In 2019, Rahul resigned from the post of Congress President, taking responsibility for the defeat in the Lok Sabha elections, but continued to take all major decisions while his mother remained the interim President. His critics say that the two crucial decisions, sacking Punjab Chief Minister Amarinder Singh four months before the elections and appointing Navjot Singh Sidhu as PCC (Pradesh Congress Committee) president, led to the collapse of the party in the state. If Priyanka supported Sidhu in Punjab as general secretary in charge of UP, she led the party to its worst performance here—two seats and two per cent vote share.
rift with rahul
Since the Lok Sabha party’s defeat in 2014, the rift between Rahul and several stalwarts continues to grow. Submitting his resignation in 2019, he criticized many of them for not supporting them in the fight against the BJP led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi. His opponents claim he is out of reach, relying on input from a handful of “politically inexperienced” favourites, not consulting party veterans and making arbitrary decisions. For example, many seniors believe that Rahul’s stand on the India-China conflict or his display of soft Hindutva backfired in the elections.
The failure of his chosen ones adds to the despair. In the last two years, Rahul has worked with Randeep S. Surjewala to oversee the election campaign in Bihar, Ajay Maken to Punjab and Jairam Ramesh to Manipur to do so. He also appointed three favorites—Jitendra Singh (Assam), Devendra Yadav (Uttarakhand) and Harish Choudhary (Punjab)—as the state in-charge. Congress lost in all these states.
“Those Who Lost It” [for us] We will investigate why we lost. It can’t get worse than this,” says a shocked rebel leader
Yet the family continues to show faith in its chosen ones. For example, even after the recent defeat in five states, the Congress sent Maken to Punjab, Jairam to Manipur and Avinash Pandey to Goa to assess the situation. “Those Who Lost It” [for us] Will investigate why they lost. It can’t be worse than this. Can they explain why Punjab MP Manish Tewari was not a star campaigner in the state and why former state president Raj Babbar was released in Uttar Pradesh? asks a rebel leader.
When the Congress lost in four states in 2021, a five-member committee – comprising G23 leader Manish Tewari – was formed to examine the reasons for the defeat and suggest remedial measures. Tiwari claims that the reports were buried and no action was taken on the recommendations. Party MP from Tamil Nadu Manickam Tagore refuted this saying that early formation of screening committees and early announcement of candidates in the last five assembly elections were due to these recommendations.
Troubled by its growing marginalization, G23 made its displeasure official in a letter to Sonia in August 2020. Now reduced to the G18, after the exit of nine members and the entry of four new members, they have reiterated their primary demands. If Kapil Sibal said that the Gandhi family should step away from leadership roles, then another G18 leader PJ Kurien believes that Rahul should lead the Congress in Parliament and leave the post of Speaker to others .
Rahul’s inaccessibility was also raised by other stalwarts like Digvijaya Singh, Mukul Wasnik and former Union minister KH Muniyappa (who is not part of G18) at the CWC meeting. G18’s unofficial head Ghulam Nabi Azad took a subtle dig at Rahul when he said that the party needs a president who is “accessible, approachable and accountable”. “The emphasis on accessible and accountable leadership is indirectly deterring Rahul from contesting for the post of president in September,” says a CWC leader.
The party’s Central Election Authority (CEA), headed by Madhusudan Mistry, a well-known loyalist of Rahul, is monitoring the organizational process. The electoral college consists of more than 10,000 PCC representatives elected at the block level by the block presidents to choose the Congress President. This is the base on which the entire pyramid stands – delegates elect 1,400 AICC members from among themselves, who then elect the CWC elite from that pool.
While this is a process on paper, the rebels claim that, in practice, the CEA, in consultation with the central party leadership, prepares a list of PCC representatives and AICC members and signs them by the respective state presidents. Based on this, the party president and CWC members are elected. This is the reason why G18 members are demanding a change in the election process. A Congress MP from Punjab says, “The process has been rigged to elect a Gandhi as the president and a group of clowns as CWC members.”
In nearly half a century, elections to the CWC have been held only twice: in 1992 and 1997. On both occasions, a non-Gandhi was on top. Ever since Sonia Gandhi took charge, she has been nominating CWC members
So the real objective of G18 is to ensure that the CWC elections do not sideline those who do not have Rahul’s support. Elected CWC members may strongly oppose the decisions of the Speaker as they are not at his mercy. So even if a Gandhi is the next president, the arbitrary and cynical ways of running the party will end.
In almost half a century, elections to the CWC have been held only twice – in 1992 and 1997. On both occasions, a non-Gandhi was in power. Ever since Sonia Gandhi took over, she has been nominating CWC members. The last time he reconstituted the CWC was in September 2020, a month after the G23 letter. Three of the original G23 leaders—Azad, Anand Sharma and Wasnik—retained their positions in the CWC. Responding to the demand for collective leadership, it formed a six-member panel to assist it and included Wasnik as a member. Since then he has distanced himself from the rebels.
Can G18 dethrone the Gandhi family?
Family loyalists say Congress has always practiced collective leadership and dismissed the insurgent allegations as “fake claims”. They point out that seven of the G18 leaders are part of several Congressional committees. Azad was the general secretary in-charge and former chief minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda was the head of the campaign committee during the assembly elections in Haryana in 2020. Former Maharashtra Chief Minister Prithviraj Chavan was the head of the screening committee for the 2021 Assam elections.
G18 leaders oppose this, saying that such occasional assignments (with many restrictions) do not amount to collective leadership, which is a “continuous process”. One of them states that Sharma is rarely consulted on the India-China conflict, although he heads the Department of Foreign Affairs. “Find out how many times the six-member committee has met to assist Sonia Gandhi in the last two years. All decisions are taken by the Gandhi siblings on the basis of their personal likes and dislikes, which are stamped by their mother,” says the Rajya Sabha member.
G18 leaders have been ridiculed as leaders without any collective or organizational appeal and who are seeking official positions of influence, including accommodation in the Rajya Sabha. Azad lost his RS membership last year. Sharma, Sibal and Vivek Tankha will lose their seats by July and are unlikely to be re-elected. Azad has not contested the Lok Sabha elections since 1984. Sharma never contested a single election. Sibal and Tankha have lost many times. Mani Shankar Aiyar lost his bail in 2014 and Shankersinh Vaghela is not even a member of Congress (he resigned in 2017).
However, there are some of them who have public support. For example, Shashi Tharoor has won three consecutive Lok Sabha elections, Tiwari is a two-time Lok Sabha MP. Hooda, a veteran of Haryana politics, is the leader of the opposition in the state assembly. A G18 leader says, “If there is a free and fair election, any one of them can contest the presidential election.” But Rajasthan CM Ashok Gehlot, Chhattisgarh CM Bhupesh Baghel and MP stalwarts Kamal Nath and Digvijay Any chance of altering the electoral process is lost without the support of senior leaders like Singh. Gehlot and Baghel have stood firmly by the Gandhi family, while Nath and Digvijay are focused on winning back MP. In December 2020, Nath made a temporary peace between some of the rebels and Sonia. This time he has kept silence.
Meanwhile, the process of splitting the G18 – the way it was done two years ago – has begun. Rahul reached out to Hooda and speculations are rife that if his son Deepender is made the Haryana Congress president, the former CM may be left out of the rebel team. Sonia also met some rebel leaders – first Azad and then Sharma, Tiwari and Tankha together.
What is worrying Rahul’s followers is that if he decides not to contest the presidential election, he may have to look for a ‘dummy’ candidate. This situation is pleasing even to the rebel leaders. Most of the speculations about the names are from Rajasthan- CM Gehlot and his main adversary Sachin Pilot. The two have shown little interest in leading the sinking ship, though the family has tried to persuade Gehlot to take over in the past.