<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
In a twist to the rudderless Congress, the mother has succeeded the son as the president of the party and confirming beyond doubt that the grand old party today is imploding. When Rahul resigned on May 25 following the second disastrous defeat that the party suffered under his leadership, he did right because he was responsible for the shocking failures. However, Rahul did not ensure continuity by hanging on till the next president of the party was appointed. He left the rudderless party leaderless at a time when the rank and file needed some direction. Rahul also made known his wish that no Gandhi should be president after his resignation. The Congress today is under ICU but unfortunately, the oxygen of the Gandhis is not enough to resurrect it. There had been a lot of talks about appointing an interim president from among the party loyalists. The name of Mukul Wasnik was thrown and appeared to be the only front runner. However, the CWC made up mostly of the old guards and Sonia\/Patel loyalists finally prevailed upon the reluctant Sonia to retake the reins as interim president. According to knowledgeable sources, the Congress has three power centres- Sonia (from 10 Japnath), Rahul (12 Tughlaq Lane) and the new entrant Priyanka. The sycophancy within Congress is legendary and like the Gandhi DNA, it is also part of the genetic makeup of the party. After the disastrous rout in 2014, it was expected that the heir apparent Rahul would undertake a massive shakeup to rejuvenate and reinvent the party. However, he was more active in engaging in talks than in being hands-on with the grass root workers. At a time when the BJP continues to be in ascendency because of the vacuum caused by the non-performance of the Congress, it is shocking that the party has been busy with its self created problems. The party has no credible leaders and the tragedy has been reflected even in the Lok Sabha where the CPP leader has been making blunders in his speeches. Beyond parliament, the party set up in several states is facing exodus of MLAs and party workers while the ‘high command’ has become defunct. The confusion and despondency in the party is likely to increase. It’s not an ideal situation at a time when the Congress has to fight a BJP that is firmly entrenched in power and is armed with a formidable electoral machinery where Hindu nationalist sentiment is running high. At one time, it was thought that the young leaders within would take over reins and even at the cost of rebellion. However, the return of Sonia has only postponed it but the uneasy calm is evident. Sonia’s return also means that those old and redundant loyalists who were on the chopping block after Rahul took over, have now returned and for them, it’s good old days are back again. The fact that the 72-year-old ailing Sonia still remains the last hope of the Congress does not augur well for a party with an illustrious legacy. She is a stop-gap and needs capable leaders around to help restore the party to a functional state. If Sonia gets capable people to co-manage the party then it could help in the interim period till election for the next president. The problem is that besides the Gandhis, Congress cannot accept anyone else and that is the biggest problem.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Back to square one<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[685],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-207907","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-editorial"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nagalandpost.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/207907","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nagalandpost.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nagalandpost.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nagalandpost.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nagalandpost.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=207907"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/nagalandpost.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/207907\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nagalandpost.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=207907"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nagalandpost.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=207907"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nagalandpost.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=207907"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}