Gujarat, where the first signs of Congress revival were visible in the Assembly election last year, is giving the jitters to the party leadership as factionalism and a rift between seniors and younger leaders have paralysed the organisation despite forceful interventions by Rahul Gandhi.
Sources said serious differences between legislature party leader Paresh Dhanani and state unit chief Amit Chavda have created complications, and the younger leaders’ reluctance to take the veterans along has deepened the crisis.
“The resurgence story of December 2017 is dead and buried. We tumbled on a downhill journey after the assembly election,” a senior leader told The Telegraph.
This sentiment has been repeatedly conveyed to Rahul who strongly expressed his displeasure over the state of affairs at a meeting of Gujarat core committee members in Delhi three months ago. When senior leaders complained of lack of consultation and even communication leading to political inaction, Rahul explicitly warned both Dhanani and Chavda of punitive action if they didn’t mend their ways.
“Rahul’s words fell on deaf ears. No change is visible in their attitude. There was an important by-election last month. There was neither any consultation in the core group on candidate selection, nor on planning the campaign. We were mute spectators as the BJP snatched the seat from us to reach the morale-boosting three-figure mark. There has been no meeting at all to plan the parliamentary election,” a senior leader said.
Another leader confirmed this. “Even Rajya Sabha MPs, former MPs, former ministers and party veterans are kept out of political processes. Nobody even calls us for meetings. What we see is mere tokenism instead of sustained efforts to work among the people to maximise the gains of the Assembly election. We swept rural Gujarat and disconnected ourselves. We badly lost urban seats and didn’t try to make inroads into cities. The BJP, on the other hand, started vigorous work the very next day,” this leader said.
While a section of leaders believes the resurgence in the Assembly election was triggered by Rahul’s hard work alone, party veterans who led the fight at that time have all withdrawn as the high command handed over the reins to the young brigade. That the veterans lost the Assembly election contributed to this transition. There were also complaints about internal sabotage and disunity among senior leaders.
While Shaktisinh Gohil has been shifted out of Gujarat and given charge of Bihar, former state chief Bharatsinh Solanki and other senior leaders Arjun Modhwadia and Sidharth Patel confined themselves to their areas. The new leadership didn’t make any attempt to involve them, creating a sense of alienation.
The seniors’ lack of interest has also choked the funds flow, pushing the party into a severe financial crisis that is affecting organisational activity and public outreach. Party leaders point out that the BJP didn’t have any such constraint.
The Congress had recovered significantly in the Assembly election after being wiped out in the 2014 general election when the BJP won all the 26 Lok Sabha seats. The Congress, which polled only 33.45 per cent votes in 2014, jumped to 41.44 per cent votes in 2017 and the BJP just managed to scrape through with a thin majority of seven seats.
The Congress had hoped to win 14-15 parliamentary seats with that performance but no senior leader is confident of achieving that target at this stage.
Congress leader Ahmed Patel (PTI)
The Supreme Court on Thursday asked veteran Congress leader Ahmed Patel to face trial in Gujarat High Court over his election to the Rajya Sabha in 2017, which was challenged by rival BJP candidate Balwantsinh Rajput, but said it would hear Patel’s petition next month, reports PTI. Rajput had challenged the Election Commission’s decision to disqualify two Congress rebels.
