More articles by

Soni Mishra
Soni Mishra

RAHUL'S ELEVATION

The inner circle

PTI11_20_2017_000049B Congress President Sonia Gandhi, party vice-president Rahul Gandhi, former prime minister Manmohan Singh and other party leaders at the Congress Working Committee meeting at 10 Janpath in New Delhi | PTI

Rahul's team seems to be the perfect amalgamation of young energy and experienced seniors

At a recent event, Congress Vice President Rahul Gandhi, in response to a question, agreed that there should be a greater number of younger people in decision-making positions than there were in the party-led United Progressive Alliance government.

“I think we should have more younger faces than we did. And I am sure any Congress government in the future will be a much younger government,” he said.

However, in the same breath, Rahul stressed that he would like to value experience and traditional wisdom. “But there is also, I must say, value to experience. I have dealt with a Manmohan Singhji or a Mr Chidambaram. There is a very important value to somebody who has spent a long time looking at these processes,” he said.

As he is about to take over as Congress President, Rahul has made a conscious effort to assuage feelings of insecurity amongst the seniors in the party, who have been wary of change in leadership as they are unsure of where they will be once he takes over. The messaging that he has attempted is that while the younger leaders in the party will get more prominence than before, the traditional wisdom of seniors will have an important place in his scheme of things.

In his Berkeley speech too, he clearly indicated that his team would be a mix of the young and the older generation. He admitted that his earlier approach was that “one should push young people regardless.” And apparently aware of the pique in the old guard with regard to this approach, he said for a smooth transition between generations “you can't just brush aside senior people. You have to bring new people, old faces, make some compromises.”

Ever since Rahul became the de facto leader of the party, especially in the run up to the Lok Sabha elections in 2014, the old guard, which formed the party set up under Congress President Sonia Gandhi, began to feel sidelined. These leaders unofficially expressed their apprehension about the changes planned by Rahul. Many of them even said they prefer to work with Sonia and are more comfortable with her. They are also said to have resisted many of the changes that Rahul tried to bring about.

For example, in Gujarat, organisational changes were held up reportedly because of Rahul's views not matching that of Sonia's Political Secretary Ahmed Patel, who wields considerable authority in the state unit of the Congress. Similarly, while Rahul has backed Jyotiraditya Scindia to be named as the organisational head in Madhya Pradesh, the idea was met with resistance from seniors, some of whom are themselves aspirants of the top post in the state unit.

PTI11_16_2017_000038A Congress Vice President Rahul Gandhi talks with Randeep Surjewala and other party leaders | PTI

However, Rahul appears to have made the “compromises” that he talked about at Berkeley, as there are indications that while he will push a greater number of younger people to the fore, the seniors will also get to occupy important positions.

If he has infused young blood into the AICC in the last several months, seniors too have got substantial roles. AICC General Secretary Digivijaya Singh was divested of his charge of Goa and Karnataka, and these states were handed over to much younger A. Chella Kumar and K.C. Venugopal. AICC Secretary Avinash Pande was made in charge of party affairs in Rajasthan. Deepak Babaria, said to be close to Rahul, was given the charge of Madhya Pradesh. The charge of Jharkhand was given to R.P.N. Singh. Actress-turned-politician Ramya a.k.a. Divya Spandana was made in charge of the party's social media strategy. Young MP Sushmita Dev was recently appointed President of Mahila Congress.

In the states, a generational change was effected with Ajay Maken replacing Sheila Dikshit as the face of the Congress in Delhi. Sachin Pilot has been leading the Congress' campaign against the Vasundhara Raje government in Rajasthan. Pritam Singh as PCC chief of Uttarakhand also marked a generational change.

Among the young leaders who are said to be close to Rahul, and who are expected to gain in prominence after he becomes Congress President are Milind Deora, Pilot, Randeep Surjewala, Scindia, K. Raju and Rajiv Satav.

Seniors too got important roles. Sushil Kumar Shinde was appointed as general secretary in charge of the Himachal Pradesh. Ashok Gehlot was given the charge of Gujarat, which is going to polls. Senior leaders such as Ghulam Nabi Azad have a key role in coordinating with other opposition leaders within and outside Parliament. Also, Rahul backed veteran Virbhadra Singh as CM candidate in Himachal Pradesh. Sam Pitroda, former prime minister Rajiv Gandhi's confidant, is expected to have an important place in Rahul's team.

This browser settings will not support to add bookmarks programmatically. Please press Ctrl+D or change settings to bookmark this page.

Related Reading