The grand old Congress party is (as always), reluctant to weaning. To wean from first family is difficult for it. Being bereft of capable leaders, befuddled at the BJP’s surge ahead in politics, the party has chosen again from the Nehru-Gandhi family their president. Sonia Gandhi has become the interim president. That shows: no worthy takers from within the party, despite the unwillingness exhibited by the first family. How pathetic! What a disgrace! Is Congress party a compendium sycophants? Cringing before the Gandhis and begging for their leadership is a sign of disparaging behaviour for beholders.
Unsurprisingly, the liberal journalists in the country are also desperately seeking the Congress’ survival/revival for the upkeep of democracy! Is the democracy of our country so weak that it cannot get on without the Congress? Does a section of the Congress-supporting media, want this slavish kind of democracy? The servitude may be okay for the Congress leaders and cadres but not for people of India. That’s not democracy, it becomes a synonym for mockery/fakery.
The old Congress of Gandhi-Nehru, Subhas Chandra Bose or Pattabhi Sitaramyya, has no connect whatsoever with this debased Congress. This Congress party is “Congress party ”only for name sake. No spirit of the old. The party got diluted and diluted. It has no connect now with large sections of people. The Congress in its UPA I & II times, led coalitions that ran the country with corruption, nepotism and favoritism etc. that people could never forget.
The Congress is, as always, a faction-ridden party. All factions want a head from the Nehru-Gandhi family as arbiter. They made appeal to all three family members. Finally, Sonia Gandhi who headed the party for nearly two decades has obliged to be the interim president. Luckily for her, in her earlier period, the presence of social media was miniscule. The party’s misdemeanors were not at public glare. Yet, the scams, tainted the party. Now the scenario has changed.
Parsing of Sonia Gandhi:- Sonia Gandhi is an enigmatic person. No one knows what she stands for! She, with her good old advisors of the Congress party, functioned in a cozy environment of her office in Delhi. Barring from some scripted speeches, her speeches of impromptu were very rare. She was never seen speaking in the parliament on crucial issues. Specially, after BJP led NDA came to power twice. Prior to that, in the UPA rule also, she was sparing in her words. One or two times that she spoke, hers was a reading from a piece of paper. Earlier, when she first entered into politics, politicians of the time used to make fun of her reading from the paper by saying – ‘we want leaders and not readers.’ She, now, is no different from the good old days she began her career in politics. Whether the Congress party sinks or sails, is left to time.
William Shakespeare’s famous quote goes this way: ‘Some are born great, some achieve greatness, and some have greatness thrust upon them’. Sonia Gandhi’s greatness is of the third category. It’s her luck that favored her to marry into the powerful political family. She didn’t jump into politics soon after her husband’s assassination though there was a desperate call from among the Congress cadres. Her restraint (she knows the reasons why she restrained at that point of time and joined later and keen on becoming prime minister in a country of more than a billion Indian population) was seemingly approved by many as altruistic.
There are many sides ascribed to Sonia Gandhi. No one knows which side is true. Whatever be her original nature, she has, all along held the strings of power during ten year Manmohan Singh period. During the UPA- I & II rule, that was run proxy by her, rabid anti-Hindu leaders (and also journos of the ilk) emerged from her party. They still cling to her and to the party-Congress in the name of secularism and liberalism. Secular and liberal are not pejorative words per se. But they made them out to be. The free flow of funds to missionaries through waving restrictions on Foreign Contributions Regulation Act (FCRA) was also done during her period.
Sonia Gandhi chaired National Advisory Council (NAC) which was a bunch full of Communist left oriented liberal policy makers. They fed their views and resolutions to the Manmohan Singh Government at the Centre. Though not all their ideas were bad, their world view was heavily biased. For years together, the elite of the Congress has made a policy, to suppress the voices of the Hindus in the name of ‘hate speech’ and promoted their kind of secular voice to be the ‘free-speech’. Only after the advent of social media, there came a level playing field. The designs of the Congress came to light. It was all a strategy adopted by them. They call, even now, themselves Liberals after being dogmatic in suppressing the alternative views.
The hollowness of Gandhis :- It’s wondering to see Sonia Gandhi and Rahul Gandhi sitting silent when the whole exercise of Article-370 was going on in Lok Sabha. It’s clear that both of them, neither know the history of this great country nor know how to buttress their argument in support of the Article, if at all they wanted it to remain. Such people are the Congress heads! They have no understanding of the country or emotions of the people. In fact, Sonia Gandhi’s silence, is her virtue, as the saying goes: silence is gold, since she knows nothing worthy to mention. In the case of Rahul Gandhi, speech is not silver, not even copper or bronze, it damages his image, whatever left, with faux pas and goof-ups. The lacunae of the Congress lies here, as they lack oratory.
As a matter of fact, this country progressed well without a member from Gandhi family at the helm. Before liberalisation, only the elite sections of the society and the Congress leaders had telephones, cars, computers, internet facilities etc. With Liberalisation in PV Narasimha Rao regime, later reforms taken to a height by Atal Bihari Vajpayee Government, all us are reaping the benefit and having these gadgets in our hands to have a first- hand knowledge of what’s what. So, it is in the wisdom of Indians, not to fall prey to the designs of the Congress. In any case, in this “peak Modi” era, all parties are looking pale and emaciated. Right now, in the Congress, key leadership traits are at an all time low. It’s an uphill task for them to transform public opinion to their favour.