New Delhi, 05 April 2023
Ghulam Nabi Azad, a veteran politician and former Union minister, believes the Congress is still run by “remote control” and that its affairs are managed by a “new coterie of inexperienced sycophants.”
Before the publication of his book ‘Azaad — An Autobiography,' the former Congress stalwart, who left the party last year, refused to discuss his disagreements with his former colleagues. “The deeper I delve into the past, the more bitterness emerges, and I don't want to dwell on that now that I've left the party,” he explained.
At the same time, Azad, the former chief minister of Jammu and Kashmir and the leader of the opposition in the Rajya Sabha, said he admired Jawaharlal Nehru, Indira Gandhi, Sanjay Gandhi, Rajiv Gandhi, and Sonia Gandhi but acknowledged political differences with Rahul Gandhi.
“…As a person, I do not believe Rahul Gandhi is a bad person. He is a good person as an individual. Maybe we have some political differences, but those are the political differences I had with him during my time in Congress.
“I am nobody to tell him what is right for him and what is wrong for him now that I am no longer in the Congress party,” the Democratic Progressive Azad Party (DPAP) chief said.
“I can only wish him well, both physically and politically.” It is up to him to figure it out. I only wish he was a good swimmer and could navigate the rough waters. Politics is the art of navigating a stormy sea. Even the best captains, if they lack experience, can sink the entire ship, according to Azad.
Rahul Gandhi may not be in office right now, but everyone knows he is the “captain of the ship (Congress),” he said, adding, “…Everybody knows who is calling the shots.”
“If (Congress president Mallikarjun) Kharge ji wants a CWC (Congress Working Committee) meeting in Bengaluru tomorrow, nobody will come…”I only wish him (Rahul Gandhi) to navigate the ship,” he said, adding, “it is for him to find out whether he is a good navigator or a bad navigator, I am out of the ship and I better navigate in the river.”
“From the remote-control model that destroyed the party's institutional integrity to the way proxies were propped up to take over the party's leadership, it was a no-holds-barred account of how the grand old party had lost both the will and the ability to fight for what is right for India,” he said.
He has highlighted several instances in his book where he had sharp disagreements with Rahul Gandhi, particularly after 23 Congress leaders wrote to then-party president Sonia Gandhi in August 2020.
“I guess it was the beginning of the end because instead of taking this letter as a wake-up call and strengthening the organisation and holding party elections along the lines we had suggested, both Rahul and Sonia ji took offence and viewed it as a challenge to their authority,” Azad said, adding that instead of heeding the suggestions, the G-23 was snubbed as pro-BJP.
“I'm still puzzled as to why, if we were pro-BJP, we would suggest strengthening the organisation.” Rather, we would simply leave things alone and make the current leadership's (BJP's) dream of a ‘Congress-mukt Bharat (Congress-free India)' a reality,” he said, adding that “writing a letter to strengthen the same (Congress) organisation cost me heavily.”
Rahul Gandhi's leadership was not only responsible for the “complete demolition of the Congress' consultative mechanism,” but it also gave rise to a new coterie of inexperienced sycophants to run the party's affairs, according to Azad.
