Political pundits in the media are falling over themselves in trying to prevail upon Rahul Gandhi to quit the post of Party President. One suggestion is that he should give an opportunity for someone outside the Nehru family to lead the Congress from the front. This would seem illogical and an affront to history. Long ago, Indira Gandhi had turned the Indian National Congress into a family enterprise. Having split the INC in 1969, she headed what was then called the Indira Congress, which later became Congress (I) and then the Congress. The other Congress factions perished, but offshoots led by new-age leaders appeared in the form of Nationalist Congress Party and Trinamool Congress.
The central Congress edifice today is the Congress led by Rahul Gandhi with able support from mother Sonia Gandhi. Priyanka Gandhi too was brought into a position of leadership a while ago, it remains a family enterprise, and Indians repeatedly kept reposing faith in this family-centric party. Elections by their very nature spell both success and defeat. An electoral defeat often proved a stepping stone to a landslide win.
Almost every Indian political outfit today, with the exception of the BJP and the Left, is a family enterprise. New dynasties are springing up with the ease of mushrooms and laughing their way through power and pelf, as election affidavits prove year after year. The families of Sharad Pawar, Praful Patel, Kamal Nath and Chandrababu Naidu are sitting plum on hundreds of crores of wealth. Or even Jagan Mohan Reddy, the Thackerays, the Badals, or the Stalins and Marans. They lead politics in India from the front.
Under the circumstances, Rahul Gandhi’s right to lead the Congress cannot be questioned. This is not an advocacy for dynastic politics. Such a situation is the anti-thesis of democracy. Yet, if people vote for such leaders and parties, their legitimacy cannot be overlooked. Rahul Gandhi might have lost Amethi, but he is MP from Wayanad. He has the legitimacy of an elected representative of the people, unlike, say, a Sitaram Yechury.
Pundits’ advice apart, the Congress party will not survive without a Nehru family member at its head. Like it or not, the legacy of the Nehrus now rests with Sonia Gandhi and her family and does not reach up to Maneka Gandhi or her son. That’s the way life is. If there is no “first family,” the Congress will be as dead as dodo; leaders will fight to its finish.