Senior Congressman, Jairam Ramesh recently told the media that the Congress Party is facing an existential crisis. He went further to state that while the sultanate has long disappeared, Congress leaders continued to behave like sultans. But even the outspoken Ramesh did not dare challenge the real dynasts – Sonia Gandhi and Rahul Gandhi. He ended his long tirade against his own party with a damp squib that Rahul Gandhi will make a great leader. Rahul Gandhi is precisely the reason for the rapid downfall of the Congress Party. The BJP has succeeded to caricature him as a national comic figure. In fact, the BJP feels that as long as Rahul is around to lead the Congress it makes that party’s task that much easier. The caricaturing of the Gandhi scion is also a strategic political move. The BJP and its propaganda machine and trolls have been doing damning spoofs of him for quite a while now, so much so that even before Rahul Gandhi can utter a word the unwary listener starts giggling. Social media has only aggravated the situation for the Congress! This is the level to which the Vice President of the Congress Party is reduced to. And with him the Congress Party!
However, the BJP’s war cry of Congress Mukht Bharat is dangerous for democracy. How will democracy survive with only one macho ruling party? For the sake of democracy alone, the Congress needs to reinvent itself but Congressmen and women should have the gumption to tell it like it is – that Sonia Gandhi and Rahul Gandhi are no longer appealing to the public. They have become liabilities. Their names are associated with dynasty, the VVIP entitlements and absence of inner party democracy. People are looking at younger leaders with no history of corruption to come up and lead the party now and to brace themselves for 2019. They don’t want the Chidambarams and the Ghulam Nabi Azads or the Kamal Naths to lead the Congress. As Ramesh says, the Congress is imploding and it is this clash of ideology between the young leadership and the old guards that is the Party’s biggest dilemma.
