The Congress is going through tumultuous times, with erstwhile Gandhi loyalists and servile stooges of the dynasty now taking up the mantle of being Gandhi hawks in the party. A letter, which has come to be called as the infamous ‘dissent letter’ addressed to interim Congress President Sonia Gandhi by 23 senior-most leaders of the party became the stepping stone for the remaining Gandhi loyalists in the party to attack those who had penned the letter. The hounding of those who signed the letter hoping for a constructive change in the party has not gone down well with Kapil Sibal, a known Gandhi loyalist until recently.
Sibal has now revealed that while the purpose of the letter addressed to Sonia Gandhi was to bring about a radical change in the party and its leadership, the same calls for change has fallen into deaf ears. Kapil Sibal, while speaking to the Indian Express has also alleged that the letter was not even taken up for discussion during the dramatic CWC meet this month.
Kapil Sibal said the CWC should have been apprised of what the letter said. “That is the fundamental thing that should have happened. This is what these 23 people have written. If you find fault with any of what we have written, then, surely, we can be questioned and we should be questioned…But if you don’t talk of substance and talk of either timing or the fact that we wrote, that itself is an example of distancing yourself from the cause. And that has what has happened. Not one request of ours, a concern of ours, reflected in the letter has been sought to be addressed in that meeting. Not one. Yet we are called dissenters,” Sibal said.
He also added, “in the course of the (CWC) meeting we were called traitors and nobody sitting in that meeting including the leadership told them that this is not the kind of language.” What Kapil Sibal says, however, is not far from the truth. What the said letter was intended to do was force Congress’ top leadership into thorough introspection, and subsequently, to have them execute effective changes in the party. However, what instead happened at the CWC meet, where ideally the letter should have been deliberated upon, was the vilification of the 23 leaders who dared to sign it. The content of the letter was side-lined, and the meeting became a circus of who bid the highest in terms of loyalty towards the Gandhis’ unending rule over the party.
Kapil Sibal has by far been one of the most loyal proponents of a Gandhi rule over the Congress. If he, too, is now supporting the idea of having a change in leadership, it is indicative of the fact that the party (if it may be called so) has had just about enough of the dynasty. How Sibal furthered the idea of EVM hacking at the behest of the Congress, by attending an event in London which claimed to be a show of how India’s electronic ballots could be hacked has not been forgotten by anyone.
The Sunday Guardian has also meanwhile reported that Rahul Gandhi is looking to purge leaders who have crossed the age of 70, forcing them into retirement. The timing of the move couldn’t get more appalling, and clearly, this would become a premise for the Gandhis to kick out all eligible dissidents from the party.