The only section that was actually interested in the farcical “election” to the post of President of the Indian National Congress, was the English media. Sometimes I got a feeling that even members of the Congress party were not as thrilled and interested as the English media. You may ask - Why is this a farcical “election”? This is farcical, not because the victor was already known, but because of the manner in which the only opponent to the pre-destined victor also had to take “permission” from HER to even contest the election.  

Rahul Gandhi was president of the Congress from December 2017 to June 2019. That’s less than 2 years (for some reason the English media keeps saying he was President for 2 years). He resigned in June 2019 taking responsibility for the disastrous performance in the 2019 Lok Sabha elections. His mother took over yet again, this time as “interim President”. A post she held for more than 3 years making it a total of nearly 23 years at the helm of Congress.

It is from these clutches that the Congress party had to get rid of. The worst Lok Sabha performance of the Congress party was under Sonia Gandhi’s presidentship. The second worst was under Rahul Gandhi’s presidentship. Yet, we have this spectacle of THE Family first choosing Ashok Gehlot as their nominee for the post of President. A front-page story on August 24^th tells us that Sonia chose Ashok Gehlot to lead the Congress party.

Shashi Tharoor wanted to contest for the post of President of Congress and even for that, he had to actually get permission from HER. The permission was given to Shashi Tharoor on September 19^th. And an election date was announced for October 17^th.

Now, instead of waiting for the actual election to be over, Sonia Gandhi decides that Ashok Gehlot’s successor in Rajasthan has to be decided. It is natural for everyone to think why such a decision would have to be taken when the election was not over yet. Well, since the family already decided that Ashok Gehlot will win the polls, why delay the inevitable?

Ashok Gehlot had other plans though. He didn’t want to resign from the post of Chief Minister. He tried to convince Rahul Gandhi but wasn’t successful at it. When the Congress leadership sent Ajay Maken and Mallikarjun Kharge to oversee a CLP resolution in Rajasthan, Ashok Gehlot revolted! The MLAs didn’t turn up. This of course naturally upset Sonia Gandhi. Ashok Gehlot went to Delhi and apologised to Sonia Gandhi.

Am sure you have some logical questions to ask now. Wasn’t the family aware of Gehlot’s demands when they chose him as their successor and leaked it to the press? Did they really think Gehlot will simply fall in line? Did they really not want the new Congress President to have a say in who should be the Chief Minister of his home state? Well, my suggestion is to not ask logical questions and simply follow what happened afterward.

With this rebellion, the Family had to choose a stauncher loyalist for a contest. Poor Shashi Tharoor still doesn’t have the confidence of the family so he is simply left fending for himself. Who better to “contest” than the old faithful Digvijay Singh!

I think the family has some revenge they wanted to take against Digvijay Singh also. After telling him on September 29^th that he is THE man, Digvijay Singh had to know from the media on September 30^th that he is actually NOT the man! The family chose the best loyalist – Mallikarjun Kharge for the post. Digvijay was left in the lurch and he had to issue the below statement to the media (I have no sympathy for Digvijay though!)

Now, it has become a Shashi Tharoor vs Mallikarjun Kharge “contest”. The victor was obviously known. Shashi Tharoor started his “campaign” by sharing the wrong map of India!

This is not the first time such a map was used by Shashi Tharoor. Looks like someone in his team has a wrong template and keeps using it to embarrass him. But I think it is wrong to blame Shashi Tharoor completely for this because it has also been a practice of the Congress party to distort India’s map.

The entire farcical process was completed on October 19^th. As expected, Mallikarjun Kharge was (s)elected as the President of the Congress party. He will work under the close watch of the Gandhi family. It is a matter of time before Rahul Gandhi tears up some resolution that Mr. Kharge will oversee! Speaking of Rahul Gandhi, in case you are wondering where he was during all this fracas – we have the family loyalist newspaper The Hindu tell us that - "The credit goes to Rahul Gandhi for forcing the Congress to have a contest for the top post, now between Mallikarjun Kharge and Shashi Tharoor."

Bottom line is that whatever happens in the Congress, all credit for it will only be given to Sonia, Rahul and Priyanka. Everyone else is a mere pawn who will be asked to perform a certain role so that credit again goes to this trio! The (s)election of Mallikarjun Kharge doesn’t change a thing for the Congress party – because the problem lies elsewhere.

Title image sourced from Daily Excelsior, text images provided by the author.