Dynasty 1, Party 0: How the Same Old Script at CWC Meeting Ensured Gandhis Remain at Helm of Affairs

The scene at 10, Janpath as the Congress Working Committee (CWC) e-meeting on the party’s leadership crisis got underway was déjà vu all over again. The traditional drama unfolded: inside, Congress leaders urged Sonia Gandhi to continue as president while outside, party workers raised reverential slogans.

The CWC meeting predictably proceeded along placatory and exculpatory lines. Sonia initially was firm on quitting and the leaders, put on the defensive from the word go, were reduced to abject pleading and protestations of loyalty, until she magnanimously agreed to hang on.

Ironically, the crisis erupted precisely because the standard trope of a Congress ‘orphaned’ without a Nehru-Gandhi at its head is getting old. The party is pretty much orphaned already; it has shrunk but the distance between 10, Janpath and the grassroots worker has not. As Neeraj Sharma, Congress MLA from Haryana (who ran a one-man campaign against Covid-related layoffs) pointed out: “The Congress has less than 600 MLAs. It would have been good if the high command had reached out to us during the last few months.”

Similar concerns were reflected in the letter written by 23 party leaders to Sonia, proposing a revamp of the Congress. Although several of them transparently had their own axe to grind, the letter, by acknowledging the desperate straits in which the party finds itself, reflected the views of the rank-and-file, hundreds of whom have reportedly endorsed it.

The merits of the suggestions contained in the letter are irrelevant; the very fact that it sought full-time leadership and a measure of internal democracy is seen as lèse-majesté, a direct challenge to the family.

Expectedly, family loyalists who are currently well-placed in the party closed ranks around the Nehru-Gandhis. On the eve of the CWC, calls were made to MPs and office-bearers, directing them to dispatch letters declaring undying loyalty to the Nehru-Gandhis. “It is the usual nautanki, some leaders showing they are more loyal than the king,” said one such office-bearer dismissively.

It is the same tired script. The favoris du roi (favourites of the king) are challenged by leaders who feel marginalised and this is seen as throwing down the gauntlet to the family, which then takes the high moral ground by threatening to efface themselves. The leaders prostrate themselves and the outcome strengthens the dynasty, but weakens the party.

In 1999, party workers threatened self-immolation unless Sonia Gandhi agreed to continue as the party president. In 2004, an MP swore he would blow his brains out if she did not become prime minister. More recently, in 2019, a worker warned he would hang himself after Rahul Gandhi quit as president.

Every time the slightest shadow of criticism touches the Nehru-Gandhis, their foot soldiers stage a show of loyalty. Self-declared Priyanka supporter Jagdish Sharma (a former aide of Robert Vadra) is often at the forefront of such protests.

The fact that the abject dependence of the Congress on the family is inversely proportional to its support base seems counter-intuitive. But as long as internal political rivalries fester, the Nehru-Gandhis (or their nominees) will remain at the helm.

The current challenge to the dynasty was a long time coming — the rumbling within had been getting progressively louder as the family turned a deaf ear to repeated pleas for organisational revamp and the party’s torpor — other than the occasional tweet — became unbearable.

The Delhi assembly elections were a reality check, proving once and for all that it is the regional forces which stand to benefit from the BJP’s mistakes and not the Congress. The migrant crisis offered an opportunity for revival, but the Congress failed to react and it was Prime Minister Narendra Modi who provided an object lesson in making political capital from catastrophe.

Meanwhile, Rahul Gandhi, who held the party’s veterans rather than his flawed political strategy responsible for the 2019 debacle, stubbornly clung to the same strategy. A sense of frustration grew and Congress spokesperson Sanjay Jha stuck his neck out. Predictably, it was chopped off. Then, it was the turn of Ghulam Nabi Azad & Co.

As usual, instead of change, the Congress has opted for continuity. The Nehru-Gandhis may no longer have the ability to enthuse electorates or the moral authority to discipline fractious state satraps and dynasty may have become a liability, but they remain the sine qua non for keeping the party together – and they know it.