As Pranab Mukherjee prepared to address the RSS, here’s what Sonia Gandhi was upto

Former President Pranab Mukherjee’s visit to the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh headquarters in Nagpur succeeded in creating frenzy in the Congress headquarters. Pranab Mukherjee yesterday addressed a meeting as a Chief Guest at a RSS function, held for thousands of the organizations volunteers. This created a lot of controversy and this instance will probably continue to pinch the Congress party for a while. The Congress leaders didn’t know how to react as soon as the invitation was accepted by Pranab Mukherjee because he had stayed loyal to the Congress for five long decades. Some leaders raised concerns, some had no problems with Pranab Da’s visit, while others criticized Pranab Da’s move. An ideological rival of the Congress, RSS has often been at loggerheads with the Congress in the past. Surprisingly no direct news of support or negation of Pranab Da’s acceptance to speak at an RSS function came from the Nehru-Gandhi family ,which rules the Congress. Neither Sonia Gandhi nor Rahul Gandhi had issued any official statement regarding this. But according to party sources criticism were served upon by the Congress at the instruction of Sonia Gandhi. It was Sonia Gandhi who reportedly asked her political aide and Congress power player Ahmed Patel to tweet last night, “I did not expect this from you Pranab da”.

A report published on NDTV by Sunetra Choudhury broke out the news that the Nehru-Gandhi family had been working in the background, ordering Congress leaders like Ahmed Patel to criticize Pranab Da’s decision.

This report by NDTV reporter explains a lot of things about the silence of Sonia Gandhi and Rahul Gandhi on this issue. They are doing just what they did during the UPA rule, putting Manmohan Singh on the forefront while they pulled all the strings from behind. The tweet against Pranab Mukherjee came after the Congress party had failed to dissuade him from attending their ideological rival RSS’s function at their headquarters in Nagpur. The party was afraid of Pranab Da’s visit starting off a chain of events which could lead to further unrest among workers against Rahul Gandhi’s eligibility as Congress President and prime ministerial candidate in the upcoming elections. Rahul Gandhi’s candidature is on shaky grounds and various Congress workers and leaders have raised voices of discontentment against him in the past. 

https://twitter.com/Shehzad_Ind/status/994085175926681602

Pranab Da’s royal snub to a direct appeal from Rahul and Sonia would have elevated this issue further. Probably that is why Sonia Gandhi chose her close leaders to speak on her behalf.

Congress has no valid reason to tell what Pranab Mukherjee should or should not do, especially after Congress had failed its most eligible politician by not making Pranab Mukherjee the Prime Minister in UPA I and II rule, instead choosing Manmohan Singh who had little political acumen. Perhaps Congress knew that Pranab Mukherjee would never settle to be the puppet Prime Minister. These differences between the Gandhi Nehru family and the hardworking Pranab Da’s approach became evident when PM Modi came to power in 2014, Pranab Da and PM Modi worked in perfect sync. Nobody could believe that a President from Congress’s political background would be regarded so highly by a BJP Prime Minister, but that is exactly what happened. The political differences were set aside to carry out the respective positions each of them held.

NDTV deserves to be praised for reporting this incident with facts, especially considering it has often been alleged to work as the mouthpiece for Congress.