Jolt for brainstorming Congress as prominent Punjab leader Sunil Jakhar quits party

As Congress leaders continued their chintan (brainstorming) in Rajasthan’s Udaipur on May 14, the crisis-ridden party was faced with another cause for chinta (worry) in Punjab.

Sunil Jakhar, the party’s most prominent Hindu face from Sikh-dominated Punjab, announced his decision to quit the Congress. The former Punjab Congress president launched into a blistering tirade against the Congress high command — interim party president Sonia Gandhi and former Congress chief Rahul Gandhi — as he bid “goodbye and good luck” to the party in a Facebook Live.

Jakhar’s no-holds-barred attack at the Gandhis — he mocked Rahul saying “if you can’t identify friends and foes, at least identify assets and liabilities” and urged Sonia to “spare Punjab” from her politics — can’t be wished away by the party as just another jilted leader’s rant.

The former party veteran had been upset with the Congress ever since he was overlooked for the job of Punjab’s chief minister after Amarinder Singh’s sacking last year. However, Rahul and several other party leaders had assiduously tried to pacify Jakhar in the run-up to the Punjab polls, appointing him chief of the party’s campaign.

But the rift between Jakhar and the party continued to widen. The Congress’s humiliating defeat in the Punjab polls had only increased this friction with leaders such as former CM Charanjit Singh Channi accusing Jakhar of sabotaging the party’s campaign with his regular criticism of the state leadership.

Jakhar targets Ambika Soni

However, instead of brokering a reconciliation, the party leadership seemed to have turned a blind eye to Jakhar’s grievances. The veteran leader, whose nephew was among the 18 Congress candidates who managed to win their seats in the Punjab polls, firmly believed that the growing gulf between him and the high command was created by Ambika Soni, a CWC member and confidant of Sonia Gandhi.

Also read: Sonia calls for introspection, contemplation at Congress’s Chintan Shivir

As he bid adieu to the party, Jakhar reiterated his criticism of Soni but with a sharper tenor. He accused Soni of hurting the sentiments of Punjab’s Sikhs and Hindus by insisting (when the party was looking for Amarinder Singh’s successor) that the state cannot have a Hindu CM. Jakhar also pointed out that Soni, whose word was being taken by the Gandhis against that of a loyal party worker such as him, had quit the party in 1977 and contested polls against the official Congress candidate from Chandigarh.

Jakhar’s statement was also a barely-veiled attack on the party’s present culture of rewarding turncoats while acting tough against loyal workers and leaders. Just as he pointed out Soni’s exit from the Congress in 1977 and eventual return to the party as a CWC member, Jakhar also said that the man who initiated intra-party disciplinary proceedings against him last month was none other than Tariq Anwar, who had joined cause with Sharad Pawar in 1999 to attack Sonia’s leadership of the party on grounds of her foreign origin. Anwar had left the Congress and co-founded Pawar’s NCP but returned to the Grand Old Party some years back and is now a party general secretary and CWC member.

A major loss

With Jakhar’s exit, the Congress stands to lose its most prominent Hindu leader in Punjab and one who had a relatively clean reputation and the rare ability of firmly and candidly pointing out to the Gandhis where they and the party was erring. Besides, his resignation comes at a time when the Congress has lost a chunk of its Hindu vote in Punjab and been branded by both, the state’s ruling AAP and the Centre’s ruling BJP, as being an anti-Hindu party, though for different reasons.

That his exit, though a matter of speculation for several months now, has left the Congress befuddled at a time when it is brainstorming for a roadmap of reform and revival, was palpable in Udaipur.

“I have not heard his statement and can’t comment about it but if this (Jakhar quitting) is true, I am shocked. He is a senior leader and colleague of many years,” Partap Singh Bajwa, Leader of Opposition in the Punjab assembly, told The Federal, at the sidelines of the Chintan Shivir in Udaipur.

Another party leader from the state, seeking anonymity, said: “The kind of humiliation a section of party leaders subjected him to was certainly avoidable… Jakhar may have hurt the party with his statements during the Punjab polls but we can’t dismiss the long years he gave to the Congress as a dedicated leader… We should have handled this better, it is still not too late and the leadership must try to keep him in the party; it is never late to realise our mistakes and work towards a rapprochement… Isn’t that why we are holding this chintan shivir”.

Storm brewing in Gujarat

While Jakhar has called it quits, the party is also bracing for another jolt from poll-bound Gujarat. The party’s working president, Hardik Patel, has been relentlessly complaining against the state leadership undermining him and the Gandhis not stepping in to address his grievances.

Like Jakhar, Patel too represents an electorally crucial constituency for the Congress in Gujarat — that of the formidable Patidar vote bank. Though Rahul made some effort at keeping Patel calm, party sources say these were yet to pay off when the Wayanad MP “accidentally made things worse”.

Last week, while addressing a massive rally in Gujarat’s Dahod, Rahul singled out independent MLA Jignesh Mevani for praise. Rahul pointed out that Jignesh had been raising his voice against the BJP without fear and was being hounded for it with police cases foisted against him and his recent arrest. In doing so, Rahul seemed to forget that Patel too had aggressively targeted the BJP until recently and was, like Mevani, booked under many cases. Among Patel’s grievances has been the Congress ‘s refusal to provide him legal help in the cases filed by the BJP government against him and Rahul rarely acknowledging his struggles. The Dahod rally could have been a place for Rahul to change this but he didn’t.

Patel is now sulking more than before and seriously considering quitting the party, sources close to him say.

Rajasthan woes

Jakhar and Patel — in varying degrees — are just two examples of Congress’s continuing failure in stemming its crisis of attrition. Even in Rajasthan, the state hosting the chintan shivir, the party is still struggling to find an actionable roadmap of transition of power from chief minister Ashok Gehlot to his intra-party nemesis, Sachin Pilot.

Pilot has lost no chance to assert his contribution and loyalty to the party and the need for younger leaders to be given important roles in the party and its few governments. Gehlot, in turn, has constantly reminded the high command and party workers of Pilot’s failed rebellion against the state government two years ago. The friction has shown no sign of abating, though those close to Pilot maintain that the former deputy CM will not take the path chosen by Jakhar or being contemplated by Patel.

Nonetheless, while the Congress drafts its ‘nav sankalp‘ (new resolution) in Udaipur, it seems blissfully unaware of how to tackle this ‘nav sankat‘ (new problems) of attrition.

Also read: Chintan Shivir: Sonia as tough on Modi govt as on Congress revival, but…