It may sound a little harsh, but one has to accept the reality. The 125-year old Congress party lacks a clear direction and faces a bankruptcy of leadership. The ability of a strong leader comes to the fore only when the party is in crisis. The Congress party is now in such an unprecedented crisis, but Congress president Sonia Gandhi has clearly displayed her weakness in tackling the situation.
Apparently, Sonia Gandhi has been on the defensive with a series of scandals surfacing in the last five to six years: the large scale financial irregularities in commonwealth games, the 2-G spectrum scandal, the ISRO scandal etc. Instead of facing the situation boldly, she always tried to shift the blame on to Prime Minister Dr Manmohan Singh, who had to cut a sorry figure before the people every time.
Even in the latest Supreme Court rap on the government with regard to appointment of a corrupt official like P J Thomas as Central Vigilance Commission, the Prime Minister had to take the blame on to himself. And when media persons questioned him on various scandals, Singh did not blame it on Sonia but tried to pass the buck to the coalition partners.
Confining ourselves to Andhra Pradesh, the Congress party is literally digging its own grave.
First, the Congress leadership has miserably failed to tackle the situation in the post-YSR period. Instead of giving due respect to YSR’s son Jaganmohan Reddy and grooming him as the heir apparent in the absence of a credible and charismatic leader, the Congress high command created a situation wherein Jagan was forced to leave the party.
There was no reason why Sonia Gandhi had kept Jagan at bay. The only reason one can think of is ego problem. Though Jagan was too ambitious and a man in a hurry to ascend the throne, the Congress high command, too, was too eager to get rid of him for no reason or rhyme. Now, it has created a situation which has split the Congress party in the state vertically and a majority of the Congress leaders are looking up to Jagan as an alternative choice.
The other major blunder committed by the Congress high command is to ignore the strong Telangana sentiment which is now threatening to wipe out of the party in both Telangana and Andhra region.
A strong decision, whether it is in favour of Telangana or opposite to that, would have cleared the confusion and uncertainty in the people. But with her stoic silence, Sonia Gandhi and her coterie have only precipitated the issue and now the situation has reached such a stage that any further delay would only lead to civil war in the state.
The Congress rank and file in the state is vertically divided on regional lines and it is certain to spell doom for the party. Thirdly, the way the Congress high command is ignoring the party leaders from the state in the reshuffling of the union cabinet or the party organization has also added fuel to the fire. The Congress leaders in the state are seething in anger against the leadership and no wonder, they would all lose interest in party activities in the state.
One would not get surprised if the Congress, which has maximum number of MPs from Andhra Pradesh in the last two general elections, would end up with a single digit in the next elections.
What else one would call this, except saying: “Vinasha Kale Viparitha Buddhi:” ?
