Azad Betrays the Congress

 

Azad Betrays the Congress

The senior most Congress leader Gulam Nabi Azad has resigned from the Congress, after associating with it for more than five decades.  In his letter August 26, he made a scathing personal attack on Sonia and Rahul, holding the latter responsible for the Congress humiliating successive defeats in the General Elections of 2014 and 2019. When the G-23 leaders, led by Azad, wrote a letter to Sonia Gandhi in August 2020, seeking organizational reforms in the party, it was speculated that it was an attempt to posture to retain important party positions in the emerging new leadership of Rahul Gandhi. Now the glovers are off, with the direct attack on Rahul.

 

Azad accuses Rahul Gandhi of running the party ‘with coterie of inexperienced sycophants.” He joined the Congress in 1970 and enjoyed the most enviable positions in the party and the government, that no other leader could have ever aspired-from the Youth Congress President, Chief Minister of J& K, uninterrupted position a Minister in the successive governments of Indira Gandhi, Rajiv Gandhi, Narasimha Rao and Manmohan Singh.   He got elected to Lok Sabha in 1980 from Washim, Maharashtra, then got nominated to Rajya Sabha in 1990 and continued as its member for five terms till last year. He was the leader of the Opposition in Rajya Sabha from 1914 to 2021. He was part of the inner circle of the Gandhis that he now calls ‘coterie.’  Some of the current senior Congress leaders, including Azad and Anand Sharma, were called the sycophants of Sanjay Gandhi. Azad was a blue eyed boy of Sanjay Gandhi. Had Sanjay Gandhi removed them, as they now expect Rahul Gandhi to dispense with his ‘coterie’, then nobody in the country would have known Azad and other leaders.

 

It is obvious that these so-called senior leaders do not want to give up their positions in the party, paving the way for new young leaders. If the seniors want to stick to their positions for life, how can the party ever attract new talents and grow! It is selfishness, keeping personal glory above the party’s interest. Azad’s resignation at a time the party is gearing up to organize Mahangai Par Hall Bol rally at Ramlila Maida on September 4 to be addressed by Rahul Gandhi and the Bharat Jodo Yatra, covering some 3500 kms from Kanyakumari to Kashmir- from September 7, that too when Sonia is abroad for medical checkup, along with Rahul and Priyanka, shows the ulterior motive beyond the writing of the letter of resignation and releasing it to the media. Earlier in August 2020, he also engineered the letter by G-23 when Sonia Gandhi was hospitalized. He has been playing into the hands of BJP and weakening the party, from within. 

Azad was getting close to BJP for sometime now- whether it was Narendra Modi's tearful farewell for Azad in the Rajya Sabha, honouring him with a Padma Vibhushan or giving an extension to his Lutyens's bungalow, the signs were visible, despite the fact the Modi government had abrogated the Article 370 that granted special status to his home state of J&K, taken away its statehood and split the state into two union territories, in a most arbitrary and bizarre manner by violating all constitutional  norms.

 

Having enjoyed the fruits of office for several decades, the leaders leaving the party when it is facing the existential crisis from a formidable political rival is unethical. Azad dumping the party, that gave him everything and made him what he is today is a betrayal. What do they expect from the party when it is out of power and struggling to survive? They have not done anything, since the emergence of Modi in 2014, to revive the party's fortunes except posturing to retain their positions. Rahul wanted Azad to go back and take the reins of J&K Congress, which he declined.  And recently he  was made the campaign in-charge of J&K, which also he declined. It is unfair to blame Raul Gandhi singularly for the Congress debacle in elections.  These leaders are simply trying to absolve their own responsivity for the decline of the party. Azad was the CWC member for nearly four decades and AICC General Secretary in-charge of almost every state, being part of all the decisions the party made. Rahul Gandhi is the only leader consistently attacking the BJP and the RSS and their divisive politics. No other dissident Congress leader has come out in support of him.

 

Azad is accusing even Sonia Gandhi of being a ‘nominal figurehead’, as according to him "the remote-control model that demolished the institutional integrity of the UPA government now applied to the Indian National Congress, all important decisions were being taken by Rahul Gandhi or rather worse his security guards and PAs.”  And when there is a talk of a non-Gandhi taking over the party leadership, he labels the ensuing party presidential election as a ‘farce, the chosen one would be nothing more than a puppet on a string.” What surprises the onlookers of the shenanigans of the Congress is at a time when the nation is facing frontal attack on democracy and democratic institutions, the party leaders are unable to see the larger threat from the Modi-Shah juggernaut.     

 

The old guards in the Congress were called the ‘syndicate’ during the Indira Ganda regime. They lost their significance when she expelled her and she split the party and formed the Indira (Congress), subsequently recognized as the Indian National Congress that Sonia Gandhi inherited. Surprisingly, it was Gulam Nabi Azad who wanted Sonia Gandhi to take over as the interim Party President in 2019 when Rahul Gandhi resigned as the party president, owning moral responsibility for the party’s debacle in 2019 Lok Sabha elections.  He expected other leaders to own responsibility. But none of them were willing to accept the collective responsibility for the defeat. And unlike the ‘syndicate’ which was trounced in the elections, the present dissident leaders of the Congress are deserting the party for greener pastures, since they cannot accept being out of power. They will eventually become history. Whatever the political pundits may say, rescuing and reviving the Congress Party, in the present context, shall ultimately fall on the Gandhis. And minus the Gandhis, the party will disintegrate.

 

What the arm-chair writers and opinion makers do not acknowledge is  the rise of  majoritarian communal bigotry, the use of money power and misuse of central agencies against the opposition to topple elected non-BJP governments that practically paralyzed the opposition. Is there any guarantee that even if all opposition parties unite against Modi in 2024  and manage to secure 300 seats in Lok Sabha, the BJP will not succeed in inducing and luring elected opposition MPs and prevent a non-BJP government being formed at the Centre? The so-called expert political analysists do not want to understand this ground reality of Indian politics under the Modi’s regime. They blame the Congress leadership for leaders deserting the party. But no one questions them for betraying the party, after enjoying the power and position for so long, and dumping the party when it needs them the most.