On the eve of Rahul Gandhi’s 51st birthday – ‘journalist’ Rajdeep Sardesai, who is seen as a traditional Congress loyalist has some advice for the Gandhi scion. The Congress party’s poll debacles have become just too mighty and visible to ignore. The party is in shambles, and senior leaders are abandoning it to join the BJP. Bihar and West Bengal are among the very recent disasters which the Congress has had to face. In Rajasthan, the party’s government is surviving on the edge. Intense factionalism is rising with every passing day in the Punjab state unit. Nationally, Congress is in disarray.
For Rajdeep Sardesai, however, Rahul Gandhi is an idealist leader who has a genuine dream of reforming Indian politics. In an opinion piece published in the Hindustan Times, Sardesai argued, on the eve of the Gandhi prince’s birthday, that it is perhaps time for him to leave the Congress, and form his own party. Rajdeep Sardesai seems to love the Congress, and also seems to admire Rahul Gandhi.
By suggesting that the Gandhi scion break away from the Congress and form a new party, Sardesai is trying to take two kills with one stone. First, he is trying to save the Congress from being drowned due to Rahul’s presence, and second, suggesting Rahul to pursue his idealistic politics in a party of his own – composed of his “comrades”.
‘Power maybe poison for Rahul Gandhi but it’s a survival mantra for his party..’ my column for @htTweets argues if the Cong leader doesn’t want to engage in power politics, he should BREAK with Cong and form his own party. Else opt out. Do read/share! https://t.co/OVdwcK1X8x
— Rajdeep Sardesai (@sardesairajdeep) June 18, 2021
“Power may be poison for Gandhi, it is tonic for his party. Those who have left the Congress in recent times, including Gandhi’s close aides, mirror the inescapable reality of a political culture that is uneasy with the prospect of being out of power for an extended period,” the India Today anchor argued.
He added, “…if Rahul Gandhi wants to genuinely democratise or reform the Congress, then he must realise that he can’t do it while remaining in the Congress. Sharply competitive and resource-intensive contemporary power politics has little space for a moral revolution, intellectual engagement or soul-stirring wannabe Mahatmas.”
Rajdeep Sardesai argued, “Rahul Gandhi must form his own party and lead it according to his principles. That is the only way he can hope to emerge from the dynastic trap and be seen as a formidable challenger to the existing ruling dispensation.”
This opinion of the loyal journalist will not go down well with the Congress high command – which in any case has been at the receiving end of humongous bad press of late.
What Congress needs right now is support from its own people. Suggestions by the likes of Sardesai of Rahul Gandhi floating his own party serve no purpose for Congress. Incidentally, Rajdeep Sardesai was among the people who Rahul Gandhi unfollowed on Twitter earlier this month. Could Sardesai’s ‘opinion’ be a consequence of the embarrassment caused to him by Rahul Gandhi’s ‘unfollow’?