Shikha Mukerjee | To save Congress, its state units could take own path

The regularity of the departure announcements from the Congress, led by Sonia Gandhi and her proxy, Rahul Gandhi-Priyanka Gandhi Vadra, confirms and signals several things. India, free of the Congress, would have a fixed destination, that would also be a dead-end of a hard Right communally divisive, majoritarian identity politics couched in the hyper-nationalist narrative of the BJP’s Hindutva agenda run for an oligarchy that underwrites the gigantic expense of maintaining the world’s largest party in the style to which it is now accustomed. After the infamous “Chintan Shivir” at Udaipur that simply reiterated faith in the Gandhis as leaders of the Congress that effectively rejected the remedies demanded by the G -23, Kapil Sibal’s exit is a blunt denunciation of the cosmetic changes unrolled by Sonia Gandhi to protect her incompetent progeny and a tocsin. By joining forces with the Samajwadi Party, Kapil Sibal has, perhaps consciously or may be inadvertently, sent out a message to the Congress faithful who are disenchanted with Sonia Gandhi’s leadership. There is another part of the Congress, in the states, where leaders and cadres are fighting for the party against the BJP on the one hand and rival regional parties on the other.