NEW DELHI: The crisis within the
shows no signs of easing with
appearing intent on sticking to his decision to resign as president of the party.
After the Congress’s second devastating defeat in the Lok Sabha elections, party president Rahul is said to have offered his resignation at the
Working Committee (CWC) meeting held on May 25, which was expectedly rejected by the committee. Senior Congress leaders have pressed Rahul to take back his resignation, while a number of allies have also urged him not to quit.
But, reports say Rahul wants the party to consider a new chief — a non-Gandhi at that — prompting the party to consider options in case he doesn’t back down. The Nehru-Gandhi family has its largest ever representation in Congress now, with Rahul as president, Sonia as Congress Parliamentary Party chief and Priyanka Gandhi as AICC general secretary.
A working president?India’s oldest party has seen such crisis before and therefore has the option of dipping into its history for some ideas. One of them is to create a post of Congress working president who besides assisting the party chief, would spare him from the day-to-day work and let him focus on organisational work. That will also send the ‘right message’ while leaving the reigns with Rahul. Indira Gandhi had appointed senior leader Kamalapati Tripathi as working president after the Congress’ debacle in the south in 1983, in the runup to the next general elections. Rahul himself has appointed working president in many PCCs to strengthen “collective leadership”.
A presidium? At least one report says that the party may be considering a presidium of leaders (young and old) running the party’s day-to-day affairs. However, that would need amending the party’s constitution, which puts the party president above everyone else. This would be a working model if the party is unable to reach a consensus on a single name to replace Rahul.
An old-new president? If the party manages to convince him to stay on, that too will have a precedent. Sonia had for days insisted on quitting when her leadership was questioned by Sharad Pawar and Co in 1999, making the entire CWC and party workers to repeatedly plead with her to carry on. She did carry on till 2017 becoming the party’s longest serving president. After the 2014 debacle, Congress had authorised Sonia to carry out a “thorough party revamp”, its latest resolution has asked Rahul Gandhi to do the same.