Rahul Gandhi: The 'official liquidator' of the Congress party?

The party's troubles in Assam are fresh evidence of why Sonia Gandhi isn't yet ready to step down as Congress President in favour of her son

The rebellion in the Assam unit of the Congress party is engulfing more of its legislators. On Saturday, former Congress leader Himanta Biswa Sarma led nine other rebel Congress legislators to meet Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) President Amit Shah. 

BJP General Secretary Ram Madhav, entrusted with preparing his party’s campaign for the Assam assembly polls for April-May 2016, tweeted the development with gusto, as did Sarma. The 'one rank one pension' announcement meant the news of the defection by Congress MLAs went unnoticed in the media. But such occasions, given the disaffection in the Assam Congress, are likely to occur more frequently in the months to come. 
 

Several Congress legislators and local leaders in Assam are keen to cross over to the BJP. They are upset with Assam CM Tarun Gogoi but what irritates them more is the inaccessibility of their leader - Congress Vice President Rahul Gandhi. Sarma had openly rebelled against Assam CM Tarun Gogoi, and had been requesting to meet Rahul Gandhi for several months but was refused audience. The Congress Vice President rates the Assam CM highly. Gogoi’s son Gaurav, a Lok Sabha MP, is currently one of the closest advisors of Rahul Gandhi. 

It was in end-August that Rahul Gandhi woke up to the requests sent by Sarma. Just as Rahul Gandhi’s office texted the Assam leader for a meeting, Sarma was already seated with BJP President Shah at his bungalow in Akbar Road in Lutyens’ Delhi to negotiate his joining the BJP with his supporters. Later, Sarma was to tell his supporters how “RG has time only for blue blooded people and meetings with him were never pleasant.” He also tweeted a couple of days back, “For me seeing Rahul Gandhi is not an ideology. Let us focus on development of our nation and our Assam.” 

BJP leader Siddhartha Nath Singh, a grandson of former Prime Minister Lal Bahadur Shastri, has several friends in the Congress party. Singh says they not only complain bitterly about how Rahul Gandhi listens to only a handful of “blue blooded” but junior advisors and that they aren’t very hopeful of any future in politics. “Congress Vice President Rahul Gandhi will be remembered as the “official liquidator of the Congress Party”, and it isn’t just me from a rival political party saying it. Many Congress leaders will agree,” Singh says. 

This inability to revive the party rank and file as well as its electoral fortunes has meant that the Congress President Sonia Gandhi will continue to hold on to her post for another few months. This is one big reason for repeated postponement of the All India Congress Committee’s annual session where Rahul Gandhi was slated to formally take over the reins of the party. The Congress does not want to anoint Rahul Gandhi its President as it goes into yet another round of state polls where it is expected to perform poorly. These elections include Bihar, Kerala, Assam, Tamil Nadu and West Bengal by mid- 2016.