STRUGGLING TO REGAIN CONTROL

Rahul is trying to change the rules of engagement in the party and build a new team. Will he succeed?

- Kaushik Deka

In the summer of 2010, Rahul Gandhi, the then general secretary in charge of the Indian Youth Congress (IYC), addressed the party’s youth wing in Guwahati and asked them to speak up if they saw their seniors making mistakes. Acting on this advice, a few brave men made bold to point fingers at the functioning of several senior leaders only to find themselves marginalised within the party. They reached out to Rahul Gandhi but were stonewalled. “Follow the organisational system and seek help from the state unit first,” was the advice from his office.

More than a decade later, the Gandhi scion seems to have radically altered his thinking. On July 18, cricketer-turned-politician Navjot Singh Sidhu was appointed president of the Punjab Congress Committee. Though Congress president Sonia Gandhi officially made the appointment, it’s an open secret that Rahul and his sister and AICC (All-India Congress Committee) general secretary in charge of Uttar Pradesh Priyanka Gandhi backed Sidhu to the hilt. Unlike Assam’s IYC leaders in 2010, Sidhu got unflinching support from Rahul in his rebellion against the Punjab chief minister Captain Amarinder Singh for over two years. The decision to make him PCC chief was taken despite strong resistance from Amarinder, a known Sonia loyalist.