Downward spiral

Another veteran Congress leader- Ashwani Kumar- considered close to former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and also a staunch supporter of Congress interim-president Sonia Gandhi quit the party on February 16. He was law minister in the UPA-II government and is the first senior UPA cabinet minister to leave the Congress post its debilitating Lok Sabha election defeat in 2019. Ashwani has been associated with the party for over four decades. He had defended Gandhi strongly when 23 senior leaders, now popularly known as G 23, wrote to her in August 2020 calling for sweeping changes in the party.His exit also signals that there is increasing disenchantment even among the old guards. Ashwani is among the many Congress leaders who have left the party in recent months. Many leaders, especially the gen-next of the Congress and close confidantes of Rahul Gandhi have left the party such as – Jyotiraditya Scindia, Jitin Prasada, R. P. N. Singh, Sushmita Dev, Priyanka Chaturvedi and Laliteshpati Tripathi – in the last two years. Senior leader RPN Singh joined BJP on January 26, abandoning decades-old familial associations to leave a party that that had only the day before listed him as a star campaigner in Uttar Pradesh.Ashwani was not exactly ambitious like the young ones. Despite the never-ending string of losses suffered by the party in state elections and the humiliating defeats in 2014 and 2019, Ashwani chose to remain loyal to Sonia. However, after the unexpected wins in 2004 and 2009, the Congress slide began after a bold and new BJP emerged from the shadows of Vajpayee and Advani era. The Congress was facing a totally different BJP and under a more ruthless leadership that was determined to win at all costs. The Congress lost state after state in elections to the BJP mainly through poaching and wholesale horse trading of unimaginable scale. On the other hand , the Congress has failed to respond to the challenges posed by the BJP as well as belied expectations of the public to remain relevant. Unfortunately, under Rahul the Congress continues on a downward spiral but Sonia, like a doting mother, only sees Rahul. This has made the Congress a family party whose AICC is filled up with sycophants who need the family and vice versa. Therefore, when Ashwani decided that it was time to leave, he expressed a lot of pain and anguish. Without taking the name of Rahul Gandhi, he said the “national mood is not in favour of the alternative that the Congress party presents to the people in terms of its future leadership”. Young leaders like Jyotiraditya Scindia, RPN Singh, Sushmita Dev, Pradyout Deb Barma etc left because the Congress high command has no vision for them. Priyanka Vadra has come to centre stage from nowhere only to add to the star circus. The biggest tragedy with the Congress is that though the party is the only viable challenger to the BJP, its leadership- Sonia, Rahul and Priyanka- are incapable of seeing anything but only to exert a grip on the party amidst spreading disenchantment because of Rahul’s leadership. Instead, those holding such views are shown the exit door or made to feel unwanted. This is what Ashwani experienced like many others before him but unfortunately the free fall appears unstoppable with more likely to leave.