After its second poll debacle in five years, Rahul Gandhi ‘offered to resign’ as Congress party president on May 25, just two days after the results were announced. He ‘officially’ resigned on July 3. Rahul also said that no member of the ‘family’ should lead the party. Why wasn’t a “new” party president, or even an interim one, been chosen for 77 days?
To me, it was amusing that the names doing the rounds (as Rahul’s successor) included the 91-year-old Motilal Vora, the 78-year-old Sushilkumar Shinde, the 77-year-old Mallikarjun Kharge, and the 68-year-old Ashok Gehlot. Young leaders, such as the 60-year-old Mukul Wasnik, the 57-year-old Kumari Selja, the 55-year-old RPN Singh, the 52-year-old Randeep Surjewala, and the 42-year-old Sachin Pilot, were also rumoured to have been amongst the candidates.
While it would have been a joke to impose a 91 or 78 or 77-year-old on our ‘young’ nation, how would Congress’ old guard, especially Gehlot, have accepted Pilot as party president, when he was not even accepted as Rajasthan Chief Minister?
Well, no one needed to have accepted anyone – because, shockingly (to me at least), the 73-year-old Sonia Gandhi “Madam” is back as party president.
Power has moved back from 12 Tughlaq Lane to 10 Janpath, crossing The Claridges Hotel and the Ministry of Home Affairs, but completely avoiding any encounter at Batla House.
The process was not without drama. Rahul suddenly appeared around 10pm at the place where the CWC meeting – to find his successor – was going the entire day. After spending less than 15 min inside, he came out to address TV cameras. Everyone expected that he would announce “THE NAME” at least some people nationwide have been waiting for.
Instead, he said he had been called by the CWC to discuss violence and deaths in Kashmir, and that the selection process had been paused for the important “presentation on Kashmir”. Then, just 10-15 minutes later, the CWC members came out. Ghulam Nabi Azad and Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury said to cameras that Sonia Gandhi (श्रीमती सोनिया गांधी) would be the interim party president.
A Congress leader actually said on TV last night that Sonia “JI” is the right person to defeat the BJP led by Narendra Modi and Amit Shah. When, in 2029? When she’s 83?
All this was followed by a press conference addressed by Randeep Surjewala in Hindi and KC Venugopal in English. Three CWC resolutions were read out. The first one was the longest. It praised Rahul in about 15 sentences.
I have never even seen any of our actual GODS being praised so much. This was a world record in sycophancy. If all that was said (about Rahul) was true, Congress should have won all 542 seats in the 2019 elections and not just 52. If you don’t believe it, see the presser on YouTube here.
The second ‘resolution’ gave it all away. It said that Rahul was unanimously elected (or was it chosen?) as party president once again, but he declined. To anyone with even a slightly above IQ, it was clear that Rahul’s whole Kashmir discussion was fabricated. He was clearly called to the meeting to once again accept the president’s post, and that’s when he (once again) declined.
The third ‘resolution’ was about Madam being made parry president once again. Yes, despite Rahul saying that no member of the family should lead the party, THE MUMMY RETURNS. They say she is just an ‘interim president’. I’ll wait and watch how long the interim will be. After all, the interim Article 370 lasted for 70 years.