When there is an earthquake of massive proportions, the surface of the earth rattles into destruction. As a matter of fact, the epicentre and the fault line lies somewhere beneath and deep which triggers this phenomenon. When we talk about the Congress party, it is a reverse phenomenon of an earthquake. The party is now a subject to massive decimation and the fault line here lies somewhere at the top. The leadership of the Congress party in the hands of Gandhi scion is the impending epicentre of all the woes. As the grand old party keeps on losing ground and steam, the obliviousness contained in a common Congress party worker with respect to the Gandhi family may slowly emerge out in the form of a seething discontent.
There is an uncanny resemblance of Rahul Gandhi and his foray into politics with Kumar Gaurav who was known as a one film wonder. In both the cases, the relaunching episode has taken multiple editions. The only difference is that the actor has given up but Rahul Gandhi has not. Although Congress too has survived without the Gandhi’s in power during the Narsimha Rao period, there is always a belief of hyperventilated purview that the party will disintegrate in the advent of the Gandhi family being abdicated from upper echelons of Congress hierarchy. In a tense situation post 2014, Rahul Gandhi continues to lead the party into its evaporating decline and there seems to be no grand strategy in countering the same.
As the party stitched itself into an alliance with SP for the UP elections, it is desperately piggy banking on the warring Yadav clan and the consolidation of its minority votes to get a foot holding breather of sorts in the state. Nevertheless, you cannot run a campaign alone on issues if it is not tethered to an effective party leadership. Even if the Congress party seemingly is dynasty based, its cyclic defeat in every election has demoralized its cadre. And the foot in mouth syndrome which Gandhi insiders like Digvijay Singh indulge into rampantly against others has come back to haunt the party itself.
Sheila Dikshit in an interview to a daily spoke about more time required for Rahul to attain political maturity and this threw news bytes into a tizzy. An insider revealing a candid truth of the party hidden in the smokescreen of denial mode was mouth-watering. Although she later clarified saying he is a sensitive and mature leader, the damage had already been initiated.
BJP president Amit Shah lapped the comment and in a rally, he thunderously emphasized as to why an immature leader is being thrust upon the state. There may be many reasons being discussed for her to make those statements but this is not the first time such observations have been publicly highlighted. And Rahul Gandhi’s own speeches have sort of ratified her remark. At the backdrop of this issue, Rahul questioned huge unemployment in UP which was detrimental to their own electoral prospects as a ruling SP is in cahoots with the Congress for the elections.
This invariably will be Rahul Gandhi scoring a self-goal to laminate what Sheila Dikshit had blabbered. There is nothing new in her utterances and ‘Suit boot ki sarkar’ and the childish display of tearing a UPA ordinance in the past have made him a laughing stock everywhere.
Those ridiculous antics coupled with irresponsible jibes emanating out at a time when the party is fighting national prominence is too much to take.
The other side of the famous Sheila Dikshit immaturity diatribe may have rekindled hopes of a better party leadership in the form of Priyanka who was instrumental in canvassing the Congress SP alliance. Nevertheless, the relaunching fatigue that is adhered to Rahul Gandhi is very much attributed even to his sister. Both have never galvanized the electorate to take the party to newer heights or have made contributions by being in office. The Rahul problem cannot be solved by passing the baton to another Gandhi who seems marginally better than him but overall a lukewarm prospect. Although ‘immaturity’ episode may rattle feathers, it is unlikely the party will resurrect itself to hone in an internal democracy. The fledging dynastical roots have grown deeper as the top leadership seemed more dissociated with the ground reality. Sheila Dikshit’s articulation at the time of its gloomy election season may have brought the leadership crisis on to the fore front from known whispers into some loud decibels.
Gandhi family leadership has actualized blaming others for an election loss but not Rahul. When it is about winning a modest double dozen seats once in UP, it was dubbed a ‘Rahul magic’. This accountability loss at the top which has destroyed the party needs air time and limelight for transparency to seep in and hold them responsible if replacing them will never suffice. The murmurs of it disseminating inside closed circles needs to break out and even if Dikshit may firefight saying it was rephrased or not put correctly as a part of damage control, its time the party has its own sabbatical over its plummeting future.
As introspection goes deeper inside, the unexplored defective surface hanging on the podium continues to dash hopes into smithereens. If ‘Modi wave’ is increasingly becoming stronger in spirit and polity, its effectively aided by ‘Rahul Magic’ which is making a national party disappear into its oblivion. And of course Sheila Dikshit wasn’t misquoted. Her statements weren’t blown out of proportions. Sheila Dikshit invariably may have evoked ire but survival is more important than extinction and she has just helped subtly focus that inevitable point.