Tehseen Poonawalla hints at internal sabotage for failed fast

The fast organized by the Congress Party turned out to be among its most embarrassing moments since its huge defeat in 2014. The fast was organized in the name of communal harmony, and took place this afternoon in Rajghat.

The event seems to have been a joke to begin with, with several people questioning the need to hold a five-hour long fast. A five hour break from consuming food is not uncommon in everyday life, so the posturing of the event as a fast seems to have been a farce. Fasts are conducted with the intention of inflicting certain arduous conditions upon oneself as a mark of protest. What good is a fast if you make every effort to avoid those hardships?

Despite it being a five hour fast, the Congress president Rahul Gandhi showed up two hours late. He showed up at a time by which people usually finish their lunch. So this fast, which many believed was nothing more than some politicians skipping their lunch for one day, didn’t even have that element. Essentially, Rahul just sat there between lunchtime and tea time. DMK patriarch Karunanidhi had once held a fast which had lasted from the morning to lunch time. Recently, AIAIDMK cadres were caught tucking into their biryanis in the middle of a fast. But Rahul Gandhi has managed to put even these people to shame.

What was more damaging than the duration of the fast and Rahul’s super-short stint there, happened before Rahul reached the scene. Senior leaders of the Congress party’s Delhi unit were spotted gorging on Chhole Bhature at a local joint before heading to the fast. This brunch of sorts came across as an attempt to get a good tuck-in which would help them survive the next few food-less hours.

An even bigger embarrassment for the party was when the 1984 riots’ poster boys Jagdish Tytler and Sajjan Kumar decided to show up at the event. This led to widespread criticism since the fast was related to communal harmony. The party eventually requested them to leave, but the damage was already done.

Amidst this massive failure of a “fast”, a huge war has broken out within the Congress Party. Senior leader and spokesperson of the party Tehseen Poonawalla, who incidentally is also related to the Gandhis because he is married to Robert Vadra’s cousin, has alleged that the fast was deliberately sabotaged. He has hinted that Ajay Maken is the culprit, without explicitly saying so. He claims that no politician would be stupid enough to get a nice tuck-in in a public space before a well-publicized fast. He also says that since Maken heads the Delhi unit of the party, it is his responsibility to make sure elements like Tytler and Kumar are not seen at such gatherings. He says that Maken being an experienced politician cannot possibly be such a political novice as to make such rookie mistakes.

https://twitter.com/tehseenp/status/983268529721020416

Poonawalla’s own tweets indicate that the party finds it completely acceptable to fool the public with a fast as long as the big brunch before it is conducted behind closed doors. Moreover, his tweets indicate that the party clearly understands what the likes of Tytler and Kumar represent, but for some godforsaken reason, it has chosen not to do away with them. Not surprisingly, the biggest factor that undermined this fast, the party’s president himself, was left unscathed in Poonawalla’s Tweets.

Perhaps these Tweets are an attempt to divert the public’s attention, or to make a scapegoat out of Maken so that the prince once again avoids taking the fall. But infighting has now become common among the Congress Party’s ranks. Internal blame games have always been a part and parcel of Congress culture. As they say, failure is an orphan but success has many fathers. In the case of this party, failure is certainly an orphan but success, right from student elections to parliamentary by-polls, has only one father. Unfortunately for him, he doesn’t get to be it very often!