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Reaching out to allies, rebels, Sonia turns over a new leaf for Congress revival
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Reaching out to allies, rebels, Sonia turns over a new leaf for Congress revival

Puneet Nicholas Yadav
4 April 2022 10:58 AM IST

On March 31, as he arrived at the DMK’s office in Parliament, Tamil Nadu Chief Minister MK Stalin had an unexpected visitor waiting to greet him. “I just came to say vanakkam”, interim Congress president Sonia Gandhi told Stalin as he walked in.

Gandhi’s impromptu call on Stalin, particularly when she was scheduled to meet him anyway on April 2 at the inauguration of the DMK’s new office  at Delhi’s Rouse Avenue, defied her public image of a leader that other politicians, irrespective of their station, seek an audience with.

It would, however, be naïve to assume that the uncharacteristic gesture by Gandhi was shorn of any political symbolism. As someone whose political journey has often been guided by compulsions of necessity rather than her own will, Gandhi knows the importance of such gestures.

Gandhi’s ‘casual’ meet and greet with Stalin wasn’t the only time in recent weeks that left politicians and political observers alike a tad surprised.

With her party’s electoral decline gaining further momentum in the recently concluded assembly polls and the ostensible role of her family in accelerating the Grand Old Party’s atrophy coming under strident criticism from within the Congress organisation and outside it, Gandhi’s recent manoeuvres have visibly been at variance with her generally accepted standard operating procedure.

Making a point

The same day that she met with Stalin also saw Gandhi make a Zero Hour intervention in the Lok Sabha on the issue of reduced budgetary allocation for MG-NREGA and delays in payment of wages to those employed under this flagship scheme of the erstwhile UPA government. This was the third Zero Hour mention by Gandhi during the ongoing session of Parliament.

Over the two preceding weeks, Gandhi had urged the Centre to “put an end to the systematic interference of Facebook and other social media giants in the electoral politics of the world’s largest democracy” and had also asked the Centre, through another Zero Hour mention, to resume the mid-day meal scheme, which had been discontinued during the COVID pandemic.

Also read: After poll debacle, Congress struggles to put its troop on task

While it is expected of parliamentarians to routinely raise issues of public importance during sessions of Parliament, Gandhi, as is a matter of public record, rarely speaks in the Lok Sabha. In fact, the five-term MP from Rae Bareli has spoken all of four times in the Lok Sabha ever since the new House was constituted after the 2019 Lok Sabha polls.

Her ill-health may have prevented her from attending Lok Sabha proceedings during the past two years of the COVID pandemic but her previous parliamentary record has followed a similar pattern of. Between 2014 and 2019, although Gandhi’s attendance in the Lok Sabha was better than it has been since 2019, she rarely ever spoke during debates and made barely five suo motu interventions.

A 1998 reminiscence

Those who have worked closely with the Congress president through the 24 years of her political journey say this atypical incarnation of Gandhi — more visible, more vocal and more social — is reminiscent of her form in the months and years that followed her political plunge back in 1998.

“The party’s circumstances today are undoubtedly the worst in the 137 years of Congress history but in many ways the basic problems are the same as they were in 1998 when she took over as party president for the first time. She already has a revival blueprint that she can revisit and tweak as per current circumstances as well as the personal limitations of her poor health. What we have seen since the CWC meeting (convened on March 13 after the recent poll losses) is Sonia Gandhi of the 1998 vintage. She is reaching out to dissenters as well as allies and she is taking on the government in her own way,” a CWC member, who has been a close aide of the Congress matriarch since 1998, told The Federal.

While Gandhi has been relatively more active in Parliament in recent weeks than the previous decade, she has also, say Congress sources, been more hands-on with internal matters of her organisation.

At the March 13 CWC meet, Gandhi had pre-empted unvarnished criticism of her handling of the Congress’s affairs. As a first step, she had informed the CWC that if the party felt her family — she, former party chief Rahul Gandhi and party general secretary Priyanka Gandhi Vadra — was responsible for the Congress’s unimpeded decline then “we are ready to make any sacrifice”. The familiar offer to give up the party’s leadership was unanimously rejected by the CWC.

Handling G-23

In the meanwhile, senior leaders such as Ghulam Nabi Azad, Bhupinder Singh Hooda, Anand Sharma, Manish Tewari, Kapil Sibal and others, who have been demanding sweeping organisational overhaul and a ‘visible, effective and full-time leadership’ for over 19 months now, continued to hold parallel parleys.

Within the Congress, it has been known all along that the real target of such periodic attacks by the so-called G-23 leaders wasn’t the interim party chief but Rahul Gandhi.

The G-23 believe Rahul has been running the affairs of the party despite holding no official position ever since he stepped down as party chief after the 2019 Lok Sabha poll debacle. More importantly, they also believe that their own reduced circumstances within the party — denial of party posts or Rajya Sabha nominations — were because Rahul preferred a new coterie. After the recent rout, Priyanka Gandhi too had become a target of these attacks.

Having braved and survived a fair share of attacks from party colleagues during her early days as Congress president and, perhaps, realising that the vastly diminished state of her party today wouldn’t afford her the luxury of an all out confrontation with old loyalists, Sonia Gandhi, say party insiders, has adopted a conciliatory approach.

“She reached out to Azad when he was busy hosting other G-23 leaders and engineering resignations of confidantes in his home state from the Congress. Rahul was also advised to hold talks with Bhupinder Hooda (who not only accepted the olive branch but also agreed to act as an emissary for the family to other G-23 leaders),” a former Congress CM and Gandhi family loyalist told The Federal.

“Later, she also held discussions with Anand Sharma, Manish Tewari, Vivek Tankha and Shashi Tharoor to hear their grievances… in the period between 1998 and 2004, she similarly reached out to critics within the party; it was only when she had no options left that she acted against any leader as we saw when Sharad Pawar, PA Sangma and Tariq Anwar were expelled for questioning her foreign origin but even in such cases, she always kept a line open, which is how NCP became our ally despite Pawar’s personal attack on her,” the former CM said.

Sonia’s strength

Though party sources admit that most organisational matters are still routed through Rahul Gandhi, the Congress chief has made herself more accessible to colleagues who insist on taking their grievances to her instead of her son or daughter.

She has also been personally speaking to leaders of the five states where the Congress faced a poll drubbing earlier this month and encouraging them to be “absolutely frank” in their assessment of the party’s shortcomings.

Some in the G-23 believe that Gandhi’s recent actions are driven more by “personal interests” than any real drive to apply correctives but even they admit that as long as she keeps the lines of communication open, “there may be some hope”.

“The biggest strength of Mrs. Gandhi has always been her ability to take everyone along. Rahul lacked this, which is why his arbitrary and mindless changes to the organisation had disastrous consequences.” a G-23 member said.

He, however, also added that Gandhi’s “real test” will come in August this year when election for a full-term Congress president is scheduled.

Also read: Gadkari hails Nehru, feels strong Congress necessary for democracy

“If what Mrs. Gandhi is doing today is meant purely to bide time till the CP election and contain dissension till then, she is only delaying the inevitable. It is in her best interest and that of the party to ensure a smooth transition and use the present to put in place a robust mechanism for intra-party dialogue, collective leadership and accountability in the future,” he added.

A Congress veteran who, in the not-so-distant past was among Gandhi’s key interlocutors with existing and potential allies believes that, like in the 1998-2004 period, her challenges today include revitalising the party and simultaneously pivoting the Congress back as the central pole of the anti-BJP camp.

“Ten years ago, no one would have imagined Sonia Gandhi walking in unannounced to just say hello to the chief of an alliance partner… such courtesies were extended through her aides. Obviously, she realises that our allies no longer see the Congress as being senior partners even nationally. Today every regional party that wins an election against the BJP, be it Trinamool, AAP or TRS, believes it can lead an anti-BJP front because in bipolar fights, we hand over 90 percent seats to the BJP,” the leader said.

“Our ties with allies like RJD, DMK, Shiv Sena are under strain and if we don’t start winning again, these parties will not give us respect. Today, she has had to go to meet Stalin. Tomorrow, she might have to call on Mamata Banerjee or Arvind Kejriwal; personally, they may show her a lot of respect but that will not extend to our party until we return to a winning streak,” the party veteran said.

Congress crisisCongress partyCongress President electionsG23 membersLok SabhaRahul GandhiSonia GandhiTN CM MK Stalin
Puneet Nicholas Yadav
About the AuthorPuneet Nicholas Yadav
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