Can Sonia Salvage Congress's Sinking Ship?

As Rahul sulks and shies away, can Sonia salvage Congress’s sinking ship?

- Puneet Nicholas Yadav

On May 25, stung by the humili­ating rout of his party in the Lok Sabha polls, Rahul Gandhi told the party’s working com­mittee that he was stepping down as Congress president. Reject­ ing calls for his continuance in office, Rahul gave his party collea­ gues a month to find his replace­ment who could then carry on with the task of restructuring the organi­sation; making it battle­ready in time for the assembly elections due in Maharashtra, Haryana and Jhar­khand later this year.

That deadline for naming Rahul’s successor has gone by and the Congress is nowhere near resolving its leadership crisis as it was on May 25. Meanwhile, Prime Minister Narendra Modi has begun his second stint in office; the BJP has elected J.P. Nadda as its working president to assist Amit Shah in preparations for the assembly polls, lynching cases by goons have made a comeback and skeletons of India’s economic crisis, that had been stacked in the government’s cupboard before the general elections, have begun to tumble out.

With the newly elected Lok Sabha’s monsoon session in progress, the Congress, once again short of numbers to stake claim for the post of leader of Opposition, was compelled to name five-term Berhampore MP Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury as its leader in the House—a position Rahul declined to take. Chowdhury told Outlook (see interview) that there is “no dearth of issues” on which the party can corner the Modi government and that despite a bloc of just 52 MPs, the Congress will be an effective Opposition party in the Lok Sabha.