In a latest effort to shield the Rahul Gandhi from the blame, Congress, on Monday decided to reorganize their Uttar Pradesh state unit and dissolved all district committees of the party in the state. This came in after Priyanka Gandhi Vadra and Jyotiraditya Scindia, the Congress general secretaries in UP East and West, respectively, met the party’s state leaders to assess the reasons behind the major electoral debacle in the state. The party has won just 1 from the 80 parliamentary seats in UP.
The leader of Congress Legislative Party, Ajay Kumar Lallu, has been given the responsibility of making organisational changes in Uttar Pradesh East. This is making the people question what will now happen to Priyanka Vadra as she has been effectively removed from the position she was appointed before the polls.
Undoubtedly, this is the party’s way of pinpointing the blame on Priyanka Vadra, in furtherance to their after poll narrative aimed at blaming everyone but the obvious, Rahul Gandhi. Soon after the results were declared, the party president Rahul Gandhi had come out blaming the state CMs, Ashok Gehlot and Kamal Nath for Congress’ loss in their respective states. Congress hadn’t won any seats in Rajasthan, where Rahul Gandhi had hit out at Ashok Gehlot accusing him of focusing his entire energy on his son, Vaibhav Gehlot’s constituency, thereby, leading the state down. Similarly, in Madhya Pradesh, Kamal Nath had focused only on his own son’s constituency, a move which had won his son, Nakul Nath, his seat; but had lost the state.
Thereafter, in an effort to bash the dynastic ideology trend in Congress, Rahul Gandhi had mentioned P Chidambaram. Since Chidambaram had practically threatened to quit the party for his son, Karthi’s candidature, Rahul Gandhi had been forced to field him. However, while blaming the party’s dynasties, Rahul Gandhi had conveniently skipped out on looking at his own self, the biggest dynast in the country.
The blame was also shifted to Praveen Chakravarty, the party’s data analytics department chief and the brain behind Congress’s SHAKTI project. The project was aimed at collecting ground level data to gauge the public mood and hence centre the campaign on the issues that mattered to the people. After the campaigning had gone horrendously wrong, Chakravarty had been blamed for the misleading data. Rahul Gandhi and the Congress leaders had conveniently stated that their emphasis on the Rafale deal while campaigning had been due to the SHAKTI data, thus implying that it is the data which is to be blamed. No one dared to ask why the Congress Prime Ministerial candidate did not have information about the mood of the people he wished to govern.
Now, in their latest efforts, the party is trying to shift the blame on Priyanka Vadra. The Gandhi sister had been brought into the political fold ahead of the elections and was made in charge of the most politically crucial state in the country, UP. This was a huge gamble as a person, relatively inexperienced in politics couldn’t possibly handle UP in her first attempt but, given the Congress’ penchant of dynastic ideology, she was the preferred candidate. The party had anticipated Congress’ failure in UP and thus; several party leaders including Rahul Gandhi and Priyanka Vadra could be heard proclaiming that the Congress candidate’s sole aim is to cut BJP’s votes in the state, and not to win. Thus, the party had been grooming Priyanka to be the sacrificial lamb from the very beginning.
Rahul Gandhi, in a very dramatic move, had tried to resign from the post of President but the party collectively soothed his ego and had retained the Gandhi heir. Priyanka Vadra was essentially being viewed as the alternative to Rahul Gandhi’s leadership and the party has made sure that this didn’t happen. She was brought in to take the fall for the election and by effectively removing her from the position, the Congress has stated, “Your political journey ends here. Thank you for the sacrifice.”
