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The 'grand old party', shaken to the core by the results of the 2014 general elections, is still reeling from the aftershocks more than a week after the results were declared.
First, six Congress general secretaries have written to Congress President Sonia Gandhi against appointing Kamal Nath as the Leader of Opposition in the Lok Sabha.
The letters, confirmed to Business Standard by two other senior leaders in the party, come as jostling for space in the Congress after the Lok Sabha poll debacle has turned into ugly public spats.
The public expression of sentiment, though, reflects only a bit of the hectic parleys and multiple fissures playing out within the party, off-the-record interviews with several Congress leaders over three days have revealed. None of the party officials and others interviewed wished to come on record, considering the political sensitivities involved.
"You cannot say they (the six) are a faction. They are people who are concerned about having such a person as the Leader of Opposition who is named in riots and, rightly or wrongly, seen associated with business groups that the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) also favours, or the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) wrongly favoured in the past," said an aide of Rahul Gandhi, speaking of those who had written the letters.
Others see them as those still holding strong to Rahul Gandhi as leader, as the endgame approaches for appointment of the Leader of Opposition. Nath has been addressed by the media recently as the "seniormost Parliamentarian" and others have speculated about him taking over the role.
Just as these leaders have written against Nath, there has been a bevy of leaders - those well-known in Delhi and some from states - who have met the Congress president over the past week. At least one regional leader indirectly articulated apprehensions about the inaccessibility of Rahul Gandhi during the campaign period and before.
"Over the past few days, many leaders have been meeting Sonia Gandhi, and not Rahul Gandhi. I cannot speculate if that is because Rahul Gandhi is not meeting people or people do not wish to meet him right now," said one leader who was a Cabinet minister in the previous government. Another leader said he had tried to reach Rahul Gandhi several times but was yet to get a response.
"Through a few interlocutors and well-wishers, some leaders are trying to convey to Sonia Gandhi that the party needs her but also needs to move beyond Rahul Gandhi and see a greater role for Priyanka Gandhi. Many feel his marginalisation could happen regardless in time to come," said one Congress functionary in the know.
Two Congress functionaries affirmed Priyanka Gandhi stepped into the campaign, sitting in on almost every coordination meeting, starting early January after it was felt Rahul Gandhi's disconnect had angered party leaders. She remained in the background, always keeping the focus on her brother, but played the anchor. In almost all conversations Business Standard had about her, there were three unanimous views - she could lead better, but she is too close to her brother to marginalise him and her husband Robert Vadra would be an issue if the transition takes place. Even while accepting this assessment, one leader who is seen closer to Rahul Gandhi said: "Count out the general secretaries who still stand with Rahul Gandhi. Don't be fooled. He is going to remain our leader."
"The parleys between leaders have been more hectic after the elections and the atmosphere is more charged now," said one party functionary who has been keeping a close tab on the situation.
But a trusted Rahul Gandhi aide said: "Don't misread it. They are not trying to remove Rahul. They really want to only get close to him and replace others. They are only trying to find space in the new dispensation." Asked to comment on those who were clearly looking at Congress sans Rahul, he said: "Those are the people who are lateral entrants into the party, who have not come up through the National Students' Union of India or the Youth Congress route. These are the leaders who, during UPA, have lost touch with the poor and can only connect with Malabar Hill, not Dharavi. The RSS and Shiv Sena have done it instead and that is how the BJP won."
Leaders like Milind Deora might have targeted 'advisors of leaders' but 'Team RG' itself is a partially-divided house by now, with individuals happy to draw boundaries about their limited engagement with the leader, even as they continue to defend him.
"There is no such thing as Team RG. There is an office of Rahul Gandhi," said one of the three people Business Standard spoke to, who are known to work in Rahul's circle. Asked who was to blame for his alleged inaccessibility, he said: "One should ask that to the office really." But, when we took the name of another known close associate, Kanishk Singh, he said: "No, I don't believe he filtered access. This inaccessibility is really just that party insiders and coteries are unable to capture Rahul Gandhi's time. They have got crowded out with the time Rahul Gandhi spent meeting so many others that the UPA failed to keep in touch with."
Several of those who have engaged with Rahul Gandhi spoke of the atom-like palace. He is the nucleus and the team around orbiting in concentric circles of people, with depleting influence and access. Stories of power dynamics in the inner circles and those trying to push in are par for the course.
Communication channels dictate hierarchies. "Imagine, people who you think are in the team, really just don't call each other directly. Someone tells the other to instruct the third to call back and the hierarchies are set there," one of these people said.
Senior party leaders awaiting appointments or replies from Rahul Gandhi or his team are an often-heard tale, too. Another functionary who has worked with Rahul Gandhi, spoke of how the hiring of Dentsu as advertisers and TNS Global as surveyors remained shrouded in layers of mystery and intrigue with very few in the know.
Of course, Congress workers not so close to Delhi saw the atom-palace as one unit. But those in the orbits themselves have begun to distance themselves from the nucleus - Rahul Gandhi.
Take the case of the Congress manifesto. Who really wrote it? It is hard to now find someone to own up to it. Those in Rahul's office say the party officials had their say. Most party leaders said they did not have the vaguest idea till late about its contents. One Rahul team insider separates the role of advisors and "ínput wallahs" from the lead authors. The lead authors disagree about who really had the final word.
The team stands a bit fractured with some on the periphery, leaving bag and baggage, others being disowned by the core closer to Rahul and yet others happy to be seen as mere advisors to the core.
In this realignment of internal politics, finding the right blame is the real game, as one Congress leader, considered part of the old guard but not in the running for positions now, sums it: "Don't see what the cause for the failure is. Understand who gains from the articulation of those reasons and at whose cost. In that, the terms of reference for the future are being set."
In this atmosphere of distrust, a very restricted meeting scheduled for Tuesday at the Rajiv Gandhi Institute of Contemporary Studies (RGCIS), headed by Mohan Gopal, a close aide of Rahul Gandhi, has turned controversial. Some leaders say it is a strategy meeting called by Gopal in which Priyanka Gandhi and Sonia Gandhi are expected along with Rahul, but no other key party leaders have been invited yet again. RGCIS sources say it is a seminar planned long ago, on the fiftieth death anniversary of Jawaharlal Nehru, to assess his legacy in politics.
