In two months from now the Grand Old Party is going to have an elected President. The urgency for a new president is all the more important as interim chief Sonia Gandhi is ailing. Rahul Gandhi is not willing to shoulder the responsibility and suggests a president from outside the Nehru family. This implies that it should be someone other than Priyanka Vadra. Yet, hopes are still pinned on Rahul Gandhi by sections of Congressmen. What comes in between would be his Bharat Jodo Yatra, its stated purpose being to promote unity in the nation’s diversity, directly targeting the “divisive” forces on the Saffron side. The Yatra from Kanyakumari starts on September 7 and travels through 12 states before it ends five months later. This obviously means he would not be around to oversee the organisational elections. While running the party might not enthuse him, the more lucrative PM’s post in the event of the party returning to power should attract him. In fact, through frequent tweets, he continues to pit himself against PM Modi.
While the G23 is planning strategy and even held a meeting with Ghulam Nabi Azad, the big struggle among them would be as to who can be projected from their side as the next party chief. One who has shown considerable interest, so far, is former Union minister Shashi Tharoor. His high stature, though, had been punctured in part by allegations surrounding the death of his wife Sunanda Pushkar. Tharoor’s intellectual aura in a sea of ignoramuses that straddle Indian politics is to his advantage. However, a big problem is that his appeal will at best be limited to the educated, elitist India, which is very powerful but numerically very weak. The Hindi belt will mostly not warm up to him. It is this belt that majorly decides who should rule India, as in the case of the BJP now and of the Congress in the past.
Another name proposed by Sonia Gandhi is that of Rajasthan chief minister Ashok Gehlot but he wants to continue as state CM for some more time. His BC tag will not take him too far because he has no ‘aura’ built around him in the general perception. Worse, the old hat is aged 74. A pity is there’s hardly any leader in the Congress outside of the ‘family’ who commands a significant following or appeal at the national level. Many have a record of being hugely corrupt and unprincipled. Despite several allegations against the Nehru dynasty, their strength is the aura the family still has.
