Hyderabad: Will it drive the grand old party of Indian politics into a dead-end ahead of the crucial 2024 general elections? Or is it a well-thought-out purging of the Congress party of its so-called Congress seniors? The confrontation between the Grouping-23 elders and the Rahul Gandhi-led 'coterie of inexperienced sycophants' has apparently reached a point of no return with the resignation of Ghulam Nabi Azad from all posts in the party, including from its primary membership.
Undeniably, former Opposition Leader in Rajya Sabha Ghulam Nabi Azad is the tallest of all the prominent veterans and his leaving has triggered intense media speculation, on expected lines, over the infighting and its future implications for the party as a whole. Azad's exit is apparently the last nail in the coffin, enough to say Congress is no longer a party for seniors, who demand their pound of flesh in all matters and things. The momentous occasion has also thrown up indications about Rahul's coterie' consisting of relatively young leaders and technocrats gaining unlimited control over the entire organisation from now on.
Also read: Ghulam Nabi Azad resigns from Congress
Ever since writing a letter on August 26, 2020, the G-23 leaders have become the target of the increasingly dominant younger grouping that has rallied behind Rahul. Their main grouse is that instead of taking corrective steps for throwing up a credible alternative ahead of the 2024 polls, the Rahul-dominated Congress is making the matters worse for true loyalists and long-standing leaders.
Prior to Azad, a long list of party seniors resigned one by one and they included Kapil Sibal, who gave a blow to the Congress by contesting the Rajya Sabha polls as an independent backed by the Samajwadi Party. He emotionally said he was ending a three-decade-old association with the party. Each and every member of the G-23 leaders have three to four decades of association with Congress.
Other seniors, who quit Congress in the past two years, are senior-most Punjab party veteran Sunil Jakhar, former Union Minister Ashwani Kumar, vocal national spokesperson Jaiveer Shergill, Gujarat's fiery young leader Hardik Patel and Uttar Pradesh strongman Ratanjit Pratap Narain Singh. Before leaving, the veterans are making sure to slam the Rahul-backed 'coterie', which reportedly consists of Ahmed Patel, Jyotiraditya Scindia, Sam Pitroda, Randeep Surjewala, Sushmita Dev and others. This may leave a debilitating impact on Rahul's chances to be projected as a Congress' Prime Ministerial candidate.
More intriguing would be how the rest of India's Opposition parties are going to respond to the great divide within the Congress. Already, some Opposition leaders are bringing forward the names of Nitish Kumar and Arvind Kejriwal as prospective Prime Ministerial candidates for a united offensive to uproot the Modi hegemony. Moreover, there is Didi Mamata Banerjee whose seniority is unquestionable, given her long-standing political and administrative experience.
