Can Priyanka Gandhi prevent a possible split in the Congress?

Congress president Sonia Gandhi (C) accompanied by party general secretary Priyanka Gandhi Vadra leaves after casting her vote during the Delhi Assembly elections, at Nirman Bhawan polling station in New Delhi. (File Image: PTI)

The October 16 meeting of the Congress Working Committee (CWC) is set to be a stormy affair. Behind the scenes, a section of Congress is putting in motion, a move to demand disciplinary action against former Union minister and G-23 dissenter Kapil Sibal. Congress insiders say any move to ‘discipline’ Sibal may not go down well with the G-23 dissenters, and lead to events that would eventually lead to some sort of division.

Priyanka Gandhi Vadra, it is believed, is trying to avert a showdown. Party sources said a senior Congress leader, acting as her emissary, is trying to prevail upon the dissenters not to confront the leadership at the CWC. Instead, the CWC members are being encouraged to unanimously rally around Priyanka Gandhi Vadra, particularly after her ‘bold stand’ after the Lakhimpur Kheri incident. The other contours of this strategy is to laud her efforts to revive the Congress in Uttar Pradesh where assembly polls are less than a few months away.

The peaceniks within the Congress want the ‘unanimity and consensus mantra’ to negotiate the thorny issue of organisational polls. Party polls are ‘thorny’ because there is no clarity if the election schedule for the new party chief and the CWC will be announced.

There is a view in the grand old party that the ‘status quo’ should continue for some more time as full-fledged party polls are due in December 2022. This position is unacceptable to G-23 who want elections of a new AICC chief, and in the CWC in spite of elections in five states: Uttar Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Punjab, Manipur, and Goa.

Nearly a fortnight ago, Sibal had urged the Congress leadership to hold elections to the post of the Congress President, the CWC, and the central election committee. He said, “In our party at the moment, there is no President. So we don't know who is making these decisions. We know and yet we don't know” — and added cryptically, “We are G-23, not Ji-Huzoor 23".

Subsequently, Youth Congress workers staged a protest outside Sibal's residence, pelted stones at his car, and threw tomatoes on him. As if in a collaborated move, Congress leaders Shashi Tharoor, Manish Tiwari, P Chidambaram, Prithviraj Chavan and others went public protesting against this “non-Gandhian” method to silence Sibal.

The composition of the present CWC is heavily loaded in favour of the Congress high command, or the Gandhi trio — Sonia Gandhi, Rahul Gandhi and Priyanka Gandhi Vadra. The 20-member body consists of the Gandhi trio, Manmohan Singh, AK Antony, Mallikarjun Kharge, Chidambaram, Ambika Soni, Harish Rawat, Ajay Makan, Anand Sharma, Tariq Anwar, Gaikhangam Gangmei, Ghulam Nabi Azad, Jitendra Singh, KC Venugopal, Mukul Wasnik, Oommen Chandy, Randeep Singh Surjewala, and Raghuveer Singh Meena. Azad, Sharma and Wasnik are considered G-23 dissenters, while Chidambaram had also gone public criticising the vandalism at Sibal’s residence.

The G-23 has been demanding for CWC polls, and the revival of the Congress Central Election Committee (CEC) and the Congress Parliamentary Board (CPB). These bodies figure prominently in the Congress constitution, virtually on every page, but they have not been reconstituted for almost 30 years, or since Rajiv Gandhi’s assassination in May 1991.

Significantly, the invites for the October 16 meeting have gone to permanent and special invitees who easily outnumber the full-time CWC members. Sample the list of permanent invitees numbering 23: A Chellakumar, Ajoy Kumar, Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury, Avinash Pandey, Bhakta Charan Das, Devendra Yadav, Digvijaya Singh, Dinesh Gundu Rao, HK Patil, Jairam Ramesh, KH Muniyappa, B Manickam Tagore, Manish Chatrath, Meira Kumar, PL Punia, Pawan Bansal, RPN Singh, Rajni Patil, Salman Khurshid, Rajiv Shukla, Shaktisinh Gohil, Vivek Bansal and Tariq Hameed Karra.

In addition, there are nine special invitees — Chinta Mohan, Deependra Hooda, S Sanjeeva Reddy, Kuldeep Bishnoi, Lalji Desai, Neeraj Kundan, Sachin Rao, BV Srinivas and Netta D’Souza.

In spite of this large number of inductions, many popular party leaders such as Kamal Nath, Ashok Gehlot, Bhupesh Baghel, Siddaramaiah, Sachin Pilot, Tharoor, Tiwari, BK Hari Prasad, Bhupendra Singh Hooda, Abhishek Manu Singhvi, Ashok Chavan, Prithviraj Chavan, Milind Deora, etc. do not figure in the CWC either as full time, permanent or special invitees.

In the absence of visible indication, there is a buzz inside 24, Akbar Road that only a split, expulsion, or purging would shape a ‘Naya Congress’ as envisaged by Team Rahul Gandhi. The proponents of this course are apparently oblivious of the fact that strong actions in a political party can only be carried out effortlessly from a position of strength and electoral success. The Gandhis’ are found wanting on both counts. Would Priyanka Gandhi Vadra’s line of conciliation work? Will it be a 'historic' meeting?

Rasheed Kidwai is a political commentator, author and visiting Fellow at the Observer Research Foundation.

Views are personal and do not represent the stand of this publication.