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To survive, Congress should learn to live without the Gandhi family. Gone are the days when the said family kept the party together and ensured the party’s victories in polls. The present generation of the Gandhi family, who are willing to lead the party have no such qualities. Neither are they capable of keeping the party united, nor can they ensure victory. If the Congress party continues to accommodate people solely based on their surnames, it will spell doom for itself. The Congress is now like a sinking ship and as usual, leaders and workers are deserting it. In all 29 states of the country, Congress is facing the same fate. In some states, the party is in such a condition that it unable to put up a candidate. Forget about winning elections, the party is conceding defeats even when it is in a winning position. Take the example of Gujarat, the party with 73 MLAs was certain to win two Rajya Sabha seats. But just before elections, five of its MLAs resigned from the State Assembly. The situation is such that now the party will have to be satisfied with one seat instead of two and Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) will gain one. As a result, the party will lose its position of strength in Rajya Sabha too.
What is perplexing is that while exodus from the Congress is currently on-going, not effort has been made to prevent the party from drifting into oblivion. As usual, everyone expected that after Pandit Nehru, Indira Gandhi, Rajiv Gandhi, Sonia Gandhi, Rahul Gandhi would lead the party. Rahul was even made the party president, but in a very short span of time he proved himself unfit for the job. To help Rahul, sister Priyanka also made an entry into politics, but till now she has not been able to prove herself as a serious politician. So, the coffer of Gandhi family is empty right now. Understanding the situation, it was up to Gandhi family to hand over the reins of the party to someone capable. Though Rahul himself has stated that no one from his family should be the Congress president, it is actually he, who is obstructing others from leading the party. Few months ago, it was almost decided that Mukul Wasnik would become the Congress president. But Rahul scuttled the move at the eleventh hour and virtually compelled his mother to become the president of the party.
By agreeing to this development, Congress leaders virtually put the party in ICU. The party is now like a patient on ventilator and surviving only with the help of life-saving equipment, with very slim chances of recovery. So the Congress will have to show enough courage to get rid of the present situation. The family may not be interested in handing over power to others, but succumbing to that pressure will spell the end of the once mighty party. So Congressmen will have to fight. Otherwise, following the footsteps of Madhav Rao Scindia, many party stalwarts will quit the party sooner rather than later.