Congress plans to move into the party’s new office at Delhi’s Pandit Deendayal Upadhyay Marg around its 136th founding day on December 28. Before these plans, two questions are circulating: would he have a new full-time party chairman and stay united.
Both questions become important in the context of the ongoing tug of war between 23 dissidents and congressional officials who are led by Acting Chief Sonia Gandhi. At first glance, a letter written by these 23 dissidents, seeking radical changes in the party, may not seem like an “anti-party” activity. But a careful reading would indicate the signatories’ lack of trust in the top political leaders represented by three members of the Nehru-Gandhi family: Sonia, Rahul and Priyanka.
Sonia Gandhi has sought a six-month deadline to hold party elections, but that is always easier said than done. In the midst of the Covid-19 pandemic, it will be a difficult task to hold partisan elections, especially if there is a contest for the post of president of Congress. It will be curious to see if dissidents would challenge Rahul Gandhi if he throws his hat into the ring.
Before the current crisis, Gandhis has had a checkered history of facing political challenges from within.
There has been no precedent for the failure of a member of the Nehru-Gandhi family. Therefore, the current round of power struggle within Congress takes on significance on how Sonia, Rahul and Priyanka would negotiate the challenge posed by a group of 23 prominent leaders.
In 1969, a group of senior leaders in Congress, called the Syndicate clique, had ousted Indira Gandhi from Congress, causing a split in the party. An excited Indira insisted that being a member of Congress was her “birthright” and that she had been born irrevocably as a congressman many years ago in Anand Bhawan.
“No one can kick me out of Congress. It is not a matter of law, nor is it about passing a resolution to issue an expulsion order. It is a question of the very fiber of the heart and being, ”he thundered before recovering in the general elections of 1971.
Indira’s victory over Morarji Desai in the Congress Parliamentary Party in 1967 by a margin of 355 to 169 was incomplete, as she subsequently lost control over the party organization and headquarters at 7, Janatar Mantar Road. She had a strong emotional bond with 7, Jantar Mantar, having become president of Congress, for the first time, in that office in 1959.
After the 1969 split, Congress (O), led by Morarji Desai, took possession of Highway 7, Jantar Mantar. Later, Desai merged Congress (O) with the Janata Party in 1977. Desai, then prime minister, skillfully took control of 7, Jantar Mantar, forming a separate trust in the name of Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel, named Sardar Patel Smarak Sansthan, who owned the building. Only the second floor was rented to the Janata Party, which was in power.
Years later, with Sonia Gandhi, Congress tried to regain control of the building, noting that the trust had disappeared.
Sometime in 2000, AICC Secretary General Oscar Fernandes wrote to the Chief Minister of Congress in Delhi, Sheila Dixit, claiming ownership. Fernandes wanted the State Government Registrar of Trusts to revive Sardar Patel Smarak Sansthan by appointing AICC office holders as his trustees. But a mistake occurred. Sheila Dixit’s government tried to register number 7 Jantar Mantar Road directly in the name of the Congress party and requested a certificate of no objection from the Ministry of Urban Development, which was then headed by former civil servant Jag Mohan Malhotra, a confidant. of Sanjay. Gandhi during an emergency.
But Malhotra, an author and conservationist, who had indulged in a rainbow spectrum of ideologies before joining the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), firmly denied Congress his old place of work. Fernandes repeatedly visited Malhotra at his Nirman Bhawan office, but the latter kept referring him to LK Advani in North Block or Ram Jethmalani and Arun Jaitley, who worked in the Union law ministry.
The impasse continued until Fernandes admitted defeat.
The first electoral defeat of Congress since Independence in 1977 resulted in a mass exodus from the party. But the fighter in Indira Gandhi was far from disturbed. Some senior party leaders, including the then president of the Congress, K Brahmananda Reddy, announced on January 1, 1978 that Indira had been expelled from the party.
Reddy had the support of many powerful leaders such as YB Chavan, Vasant Dada Patil, and Swaran Singh. DK Barooah, who had coined the motto “Indira is India, India is Indira”, was nowhere to be found. The CWC met at the Maragatham Chandrasekhar residence on Janpath 3. Twelve members sided with Indira, but the head of AICC was not in the mood to be complacent.
In the absence of loyalists like VC Shukla, Bansi Lal, Ambika Soni, Karan Singh and Barooah who had switched sides, a somewhat lonely Indira found a new band of loyalists: Buta Singh, AP Sharma, GK Moopanar, Syed Mir Qasim, Maragatham Chandrasekhar : all members of the CAQ. They marched to Reddy to challenge the expulsion of Indira.
Buta Singh, who was previously with Akali Dal, spoke harshly to Reddy, demanding to know how Jawaharlal Nehru’s daughter could be expelled from Congress. “She is Congress,” Buta said, before leaving Reddy’s residence.
In 1978, the division had cost Indira Gandhi dearly. Aside from losing the support of 76 of the 153 members of the Lok Sabha, his new party was homeless. He had also lost control over the feast symbol of a cow and a calf.
The bitter split of 1978 left the Congress of Indira with absolutely nothing. The then secretary of the office, Saddiq Ali, had refused to deliver the registries, documents or official books to Indira. Then the party no longer had files, old records, correspondence, stationery, flags, or typewriters. Indira felt great pain for losing the invaluable files of her party, but when she returned to power with an overwhelming majority in 1980, as a true believer in destiny, she refused to claim the 7th, Jantar Mantar.
“I have built the party from scratch, not once but twice. The new office space will rejuvenate the party base for decades, ”he told Sanjay Gandhi, when his son-in-law broached the issue of returning to 7, Jantar Mantar.
Since 1978, the Congress has been functioning since 24, Akbar Road, New Delhi.
Rahul Gandhi’s mother, Sonia, also had to face humiliation and dishonor at a working committee meeting on May 15, 1999, when everyone was growing restless, eager to reach the first cricket match of the year. India World Cup against South Africa in England.
The CWC was meeting to finalize the list of candidates for the Goa assembly elections. Sitting on crisp white sheets, Sharad Pawar smiled and PA Sangma stood up. The rebellion in Congress had begun, signaled by the mighty Maratha, executed by the diminutive samurai with a click of his razor-sharp tongue, and watched by Sonia and the rest of her stunned council.
As recounted by those present at the meeting, Sangma slowly built a case of how the BJP’s campaign against Sonia’s foreign origins was seeping deep into even remote villages.
Suddenly, reality had noticed Sonia: she was still a loner in what she thought was hers’give birth‘. The Pawar-Sangma-Anwar revolt was a chilling reminder of 1977, when Indira received a letter with a similar message, challenging Indira’s authority since she had lost the confidence of the party and the people, of Jagjivan Ram in a meeting of the CWC.
Sonia, unlike Indira, had little illusion about herself. When some CWC members approached her asking her to defend herself as Indira Gandhi, Sonia is said to have responded in an unusual way: “I am not the daughter of Jawaharlal Nehru!”
Also look
Why did Ghulam Nabi Azad say that Congress will sit in opposition for the next 50 years?
Rahul is the fifth and sixth member of the Nehru-Gandhi family to have headed the Congress. In the history of the Congress after 1978, Indira, Rajiv, Sonia and Rahul have occupied the highest position of the party during 34-35 of the last 42 years.
Disclaimer:The author is a visiting fellow of the Observer Research Foundation. The views are personal.
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