When Congress president Sonia Gandhi announced recently that her party will pay the train fare of poor stranded migrant workers who wanted to go home, it was immediately hailed as a political masterstroke.
Pushed on the defensive by the ruling BJP on virtually every issue, the Congress president finally succeeded in setting the agenda and upstaging her chief political rival. For a change, it was the BJP that was scurrying for answers as it made desperate attempts at damage control.
Sonia’s return to form was obviously a major morale booster for Congress workers who have been watching helplessly from the sidelines as the party struggled with leadership and ideological issues following a string of electoral defeats over the past six years.But in the process of energising the rank and file and ensuring that the Congress is not rendered irrelevant, Sonia may have inadvertently dimmed her son Rahul Gandhi’s chances of heading the party in the near future. Her recent interventions on the Covid-19 pandemic,particularly the latest on the payment of the rail fares of migrant workers, have predictably led to the usual murmurs that as its most credible face, Sonia is the best option to lead the party.
Undoubtedly, there is a band of sycophants in the Congress that periodically goes public with its demand that Rahul should helm the party once again. However, there is also a silent majority that is convinced that, unlike his mother, the Nehru-Gandhi scion does not possess the requisite skills to steer the party through difficult times. Their vote goes to Sonia who, they maintain, has the credibility and all-round acceptability not just to lead the Congress but also to bring together “like-minded” opposition parties on a common platform to take on the BJP.For Sonia personally, it’s a proverbial case of “damned
if she does and damned if she doesn’t”.
On the one hand, there was the danger that the already-beleaguered Congress would hurtle towards oblivion if Sonia persisted with a hands-off approach and waited in the wings for Rahul to reclaim the party presidency at a later date. On the other hand, her proactive persona as witnessed in recent weeks has made it harder for Rahul to return.
Sonia’s move to lead from the front provides the party’s “old guard” yet another handle to push for her continuation as Congress chief, knowing full well that it will be difficult for the younger leaders or the “Rahul brigade” to contest this proposition.
Literally forced to take over the reins of the party again after Rahul signed off as Congress president last year, Sonia had been lying low all these months. She was barely seen or heard, did not campaign in the last set of Assembly polls in Maharashtra and Haryana, and took minimal interest in organisational matters. Her decision to stay below the radar was widely seen as a holding operation till she handed the baton back to Rahul. After all, Sonia’s “son preference” and her urgent desire to install Rahul as Congress president are no secret.
However, Sonia changed tack after the coronavirus outbreak. She has convened several in-house meetings with Congress leaders to discuss the corona crisis and the party’s contribution to the management of the pandemic. At the same time, she has also written a series of letters to Prime Minister Narendra Modi with concrete suggestions to the government on addressing the concerns of the migrant workers and poor farmers.
All this is happening when Rahul has been busy prepping for his next stint as Congress president. He has been more active than his mother, speaking out on various issues and was the first to draw attention to the looming coronavirus pandemic as early as February.
Though he holds no official position in the party (he is only an MP in the Congress now), the Nehru-Gandhi scion has addressed special press briefings on the corona situation at the Congress headquarters while his tweets and statements are regularly publicised by the party’s media department. Rahul was also included in the new 11-member consultative group, constituted recently by Sonia, to frame the party’s response to the Covid-19 disease.
At the same time, Rahul is attempting an image makeover in a bid to dispel the public perception that he is a non-serious leader, incapable of discussing weighty issues. He has, so far, held two separate dialogues with former RBI governor Raghuram Rajan and Nobel laureate Abhijit Banerjee as part of this exercise. More such conversations with other experts are said to be in the offing.
Despite these efforts, the Covid-19 pandemic and Sonia’s decision to play a more active role will possibly delay Rahul’s return as Congress chief.In the end, Rahul Gandhi’s chief competitors in the party are not Shashi Tharoor or Mukul Wasnik, but Sonia Gandhi herself. It’s a case of “Sonia vs Rahul”.
Anita Katyal
The writer is a senior journalist
(anitakatyal@gmail.com)