In the first week of October 1984 when Prime Minister Indira Gandhi visited Srinagar her aide ML Fotedar took her to a baba who reputedly could read the future. When Gandhi asked the baba what the future held for her, the holy man pointed out to a lightning struck chinar tree that could be seen from the window and indicated that her fate would be similar. Perhaps seeing her disappointed face, the baba told Gandhi that her granddaughter would one day rule the country as successfully as her.

Obviously Rahul Gandhi does not believe this prediction as he resigned from his position on Tuesday and indicated that his mother and he will be abroad as the party chooses a new president without any Nehru-Gandhi being around. Priyanka Gandhi is already sojourning overseas. Rahul Gandhi believes that removing a Nehru from the helm of the Congress party would take the sting out of the attack by the BJP whose leader Modi, among other slogans made: ‘Kaamdar versus Naamdar’ (a man who works versus a man who lives on his inheritance) his election slogan.

Though the public at large believe that this is a good move, Congressmen have been thrown into confusion. Used to a culture of kowtowing to a leader, they can’t figure out how any of them can be a leader. Names of non-leaders are now being thrown up as possible Congress president. One of the hot favourites is Sushil Kumar Shinde. His claim to fame is based on his being a Dalit who had earlier been the home minister of the country. But he has displayed no great leadership qualities in the work he has done till now. “All sort of characters have become Congress leaders. Nowadays having money is a great qualification. Thus contractors and the like have become Congress leaders and MLAs and MPs. Since protecting and expanding their business is their prime motive, the moment they lose elections they want to defect to winning parties. So how can the party be strong?” a Congress neta with a non-corporate background, wonders.

Although the Congress party has declined over the years, analysts perceive that the most damage to the party was wreaked by Sonia Gandhi who had little clue about the intricacies of Indian politics. Here are two examples: When the Gujarat riots of 2002 showed no signs of abating after raging for months, the Union government appointed well-known cop KPS Gill as the security advisor to the government of Gujarat. When this journalist asked Gill whether the riots could have been stopped at the very beginning he said in an unusual answer: “If Sonia Gandhi had flown into Gandhinagar on February 28 (the day the riots began) and sat on dharna outside Raj Bhavan, I would have seen how the riots would not have stopped,” he said implying that the government would have been forced to deal with the riots with an iron hand and quell it. But Sonia was advised by her aides to be low key all through the riots. As a result the Congress has been on a slide ever since in Gujarat.

In the second example, when the demand for Telangana was rising, Sonia Gandhi without understanding the situation divided Andhra Pradesh, which was a bastion of the Congress for long, in 2014. Result: The Congress became zilch in Andhra Pradesh and the Telangana Rashtra Samiti (TRS) took all the credit for the creation of Telangana and came to power. “So without any sense she destroyed the Congress in a state that had stood by the party man even after the Emergency,” a Congressman said.

Similar, but less conspicuous mistakes has been made by Sonia in other states too, as a result of which the party has been reduced to 52 seats in Lok Sabha even after being in opposition for five years. In 2014 Congress secured 44 Lok Sabha seats. The Congress now teeming with non-leaders with pretensions to be leaders, is now in a bad shape. The way the party is structured a new leader will be impossible to elect in the environment of cronyism that it had built. Any new leader elected will be pulled down in the manner as frogs are pulled down by other frogs in a well. So it is well possible that Congressmen will besiege Priyanka Gandhi to lead them. Rahul Gandhi, believe Congressmen, is firm not to be a leader and with failing health Sonia Gandhi is not in a good state. Priyanka might well agree but her mettle remains untested especially since she withdrew from standing in the 2019 elections after campaigning. But the Srinagar soothsayer’s predictions could well be true, at least in parts.

Kingshuk Nag is an author and a journalist.

Read his columns here.

First Published:Jul 4, 2019 2:41 PM IST