Ahead of the 2019 Lok Sabha Elections and with just about a year to go for the assembly elections in Delhi, Sharmistha Mukherjee, daughter of Pranab Mukherjee and communication head of Delhi Congress has resigned from her post. “She was being feeling side lined in the organisation for some time now,” said a senior Congress leader. “It is in the internal politics of the party in Delhi, which led to her resignation”, the leader added.
Just a few weeks before, Sharmistha Mukherjee had attributed the Bharat Ratna declared for her father Pranab Mukherjee to his struggle. To quote Sharmistha, “My father has struggled very hard to come to this achievement. Whosoever has been there in his long and eventful journey, I would like to express my deepest gratitude and thanks to them.”
Moreover, in another instance, Delhi Congress Chief Ajay Maken had also resigned from his post last month. It had been reported that Maken had been making attempts to resign from the party since September 2018 but his resignation was not getting accepted. He had been unhappy and dissatisfied over Congress’ decisions regarding governance in the national capital.
This is in light of other rifts in the INC leading to various resignations in the past few months. Milind Deora, a part of the Congress’ publicity committee for the 2019 Lok Sabha elections also dropped hints of a possible rift within the Congress State Unit in Maharashtra. In an Interview to a news channel, Deora said that he might not contest the upcoming elections due to the current state of affairs and differences in the party leadership. Moreover, Deora also appealed to party president Rahul Gandhi for the same but has not been paid any notice. It appears as if this practice of ignorance has become Congress’ norm.
Congress party under the leadership of Rahul Gandhi has already lost quite a few of its High Profile party members. The list includes Gujarat Congress leader, Asha Patel and Senior leader and former Union minister KC Deo in Andhra Pradesh. In Odisha, former Congress MLA Jogesh Singh officially joined the ruling Biju Janata Dal (BJD) three weeks after he quit the Congress. Before Jogesh Singh, last month, the Congress’ Working President and Jharsuguda MLA Naba Kishore Das had also resigned from the primary membership of the party. In addition to these, just about a few months ago, Senior Congress leader and five-time MLA from Gujarat’s Jasdan constituency Kunvarji Bavaliya, along with his supporters, resigned from the party to join BJP. He was made Minister of Water Supply, Animal Husbandry and Rural Housing in the Gujarat government.
While there must be a number of reasons for such senior leaders to leave the party; a few things remain common. These include a sense of being unwanted and ignored, factionalism and diverse politics with attempts of dividing the country on the basis of castes just for the sake of getting some votes. Asha Patel even hailed PM Modi in her resignation letter and accused the Congress of trying to create a rift between different castes in Gujarat.
Barely two months before the general elections, the dissatisfaction among Senior Congressmen is reaching its height and is likely to hurt the party’s electoral prospects in the upcoming elections. People have been for long dissatisfied by the Grand Old Party and now it is the time when senior members have realised that being loyal to a family would not serve any purpose.
