Opinion | Congress At War With Itself: The Growing Revolt Against Rahul Gandhi

As senior leaders quit and dissent turns public, the Congress faces its gravest internal crisis yet, with Rahul Gandhi at the centre of the storm

The simmering unrest in the Congress appears to have finally erupted into a full-scale civil war, with more and more dissident voices which had hitherto refrained from speaking out in public in deference to old loyalties now openly expressing their frustration with the party leadership.

Their criticism is specifically directed at Rahul Gandhi and his sycophantic inner circle.

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Mani Shankar Aiyar’s frontal attack on Rahul and the party’s other senior leaders comes amid a virtual explosion of dissident voices and a drip-drip exodus of hitherto party loyalists- mostly to the Bharatiya Janata Party and Shiv Sena.

Between them, they now boast some of the most well-known ex-Congressmen and women who left the so-called “grand old party" (GOP) frustrated with its direction under Rahul’s dysfunctional leadership- or rather lack of leadership.

Even as I write this, Assam Congress’s election committee chairperson, Bhupen Bora, has quit the party, ending his 32-year-long association with it to protect his “self-respect", as he put it. “I have quit the party for my own self-respect," he said, pointing out that he had devoted the prime years of his political life to the Congress. “I gave 32 years of my life to the Congress party," he said, underlining his long association and contributions at various levels of the organisation.

Bora, who also once served as the party’s state president, felt compelled to resign, he said, because the leadership had failed to take timely and decisive calls on organisational matters.

“The party is unable to even decide who should attend its rallies and who should not," he said, pointing to what he described as growing confusion and lack of co-ordination within the organisation.

His sudden departure is a big blow to the party ahead of the state assembly elections, sparking a scramble to persuade him to reconsider his decision- including Rahul’s personal intervention and the state Congress chief Gaurav Gogoi’s grovelling public apology for “any wrong that was done to him".

Meanwhile, Aiyar’s outburst, even by his own standards of outspokenness, is unprecedented in its venom and sense of pent-up frustration. He has, of course, criticised the party before, but this is by far the most direct attack on Rahul.

It started with him heaping praise on Kerala’s CPI(M)-led Left Front government, which his party is battling to defeat in the upcoming assembly polls.

During an event in Thiruvananthapuram, he predicted that Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan would return to power, listing his administration’s “achievements" but, more significantly, highlighting the “divisions" in Congress for its bleak prospects.

It is bad enough that a Congressman, however fragile his relationship with the party, should publicly come out in support of his party’s main rival in the midst of a crucial election campaign, but what is even more damaging is his withering assault on his own party’s top leadership.

Here’s a flavour of the tone of his attack:

“I am a Gandhian, I am a Nehruvian, I am a Rajivian, but I am not a Rahulian," he told ANI, lambasting Rahul’s leadership.

Speaking at an international seminar titled “Vision 2031: Development and Democracy," Aiyar asked Vijayan to “pick up the baton that the Congress has dropped."

“I do not know whether this is a compliment or an insult, but I deeply regret the absence of my party colleagues on this occasion, which is a state occasion and therefore a national occasion," he said.

Even as the party sought desperately to distance itself from his remarks, saying he had had no connection “whatsoever with the Congress for the past few years", he insisted: “I am in the Congress Party and I haven’t left it. If Pawan Khera is going to expel me, I will happily go outside and kick his backside after I have left." Aiyar was referring to the senior party spokesman who had said that the party had nothing to do with it.

He also had choice words for the party MP, Shashi Tharoor, describing him as an “unprincipled careerist", while branding its general secretary (organisation), K.C. Venugopal, a “rowdy", and Pawan Khera “a tattu".

This coincides with a growing revolt by the party’s Muslim leaders against Rahul’s leadership.

Several important figures, such as the Congress veteran Shakeel Ahmed, until recently president of its Bihar unit, have left the party, accusing him of being indifferent to Muslim concerns and blaming him for the increasing popularity of Asaduddin Owaisi’s All India Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen (AIMIM).

Ahmed, a former Union minister, two-term MP, three-time MLA and a one-time party general secretary, called Rahul “dictatorial" and “non-democratic", claiming that he was only promoting sycophants.

His move, which comes four years after Ghulam Nabi Azad quit Congress and floated his own party, has had a cascading effect, with a number of prominent Muslim Congressmen in recent days going public with their criticism of the leadership, accusing it of ignoring their community’s concerns.

Ahmed is no ordinary Congressman but comes from a long line of nationalist Muslims who put their trust in the party’s secular and pro-minority ideology.

In his resignation letter, he reminded the party leadership of his family’s “historic" association with the Congress, noting that his grandfather, Ahmed Ghafoor, was elected as a Congress MLA in 1937, and his father, Shakur Ahmed, served five terms as a Congress MLA between 1952 and 1977.

Like Aiyar, Congress had been his political home ever since he came of age, and leaving it is a scathing indictment of a party which so desperately needs Muslim support. His departure is bound to hurt the party in the state.

Of late, several Muslim insiders have complained of feeling marginalised- denied access to the leadership and kept out of key decisions. These include former Rajya Sabha MP Raashid Alvi. He has criticised the party for failing to create first- and second-rung leadership from the Muslim community.

“At one time, the Congress would have multiple top leaders from the community. Why have the likes of Ghulam Nabi Azad and Naseemuddin Siddiqui left? I think it is because the Congress failed to give them opportunities," he said.

A more serious charge specifically levelled against Rahul is that he is not interested in Muslims for fear of losing Hindu votes.

Senior Maharashtra Congress leader Husain Dalwai has attributed AIMIM’s growing popularity among Muslims to the Congress’s failure to stand firmly with them. “It is the Congress’s mistake. The party is ignoring Muslims, and that is why Muslims are also ignoring the Congress," he said.

Here’s the big dilemma for the Congress: even as it is haemorrhaging Muslim support, it is not gaining enough Hindu voters, leaving it stranded in no-man’s land.

A change of leadership- a Congress minus Rahul- is the only option which might work.

(Hasan Suroor is author of ‘Unmasking Secularism: Why We Need A New Hindu-Muslim Deal’. Views expressed in the above piece are personal and solely those of the author. They do not necessarily reflect News18’s views.)

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