Crucial polls over, Congress faces revival task

Only a wall separates 10 Janpath, Sonia Gandhi’s residence since 1989, and 24 Akbar Road, the Congress’ national headquarters in Lutyens’ Delhi, which also houses the party president’s chamber.

This umbilical cord has been the source of the party’s sustenance for over 22 years since she first became Congress president in 1998 but also contributed to its most precipitous decline in the history of independent India.

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Sonia will vacate the Congress president’s office for the party’s president-designate Mallikarjun Kharge next week.

“I have been waiting for a long time for this day,” she said after casting her vote for the party’s presidential election on Monday.

Sonia is currently the chairperson of the Congress Parliamentary Party and the UPA chairperson. However, she is unlikely to contest the 2024 Lok Sabha elections, which would mark the end of her parliamentary role.

The Congress is resistant to suggestions that she should allow someone like Sharad Pawar to succeed her as the UPA chairperson. Party insiders say the 75-year-old leader will continue to guide the new Congress president in an advisory role.

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Kharge could, if he so wishes, expedite the plan to relocate the party’s office to 9 Kotla Road, which is 4 km from Akbar Road and nearer Delhi’s bustling ITO landmark, ensuring at least a physical distance between the family and the party. There were indications on Wednesday that Kharge might just get the space he needs to revive the party when Sonia followed protocol to visit his 10 Rajaji Marg residence to congratulate him.

Shashi Tharoor said the elections mark the beginning of the Congress’ revival. If Tharoor’s prophecy is to come true, much would depend upon whether Kharge and the Gandhi family allow regional leaders to blossom. Otherwise, with the party’s high command at its feeblest, it could split further, as it did during Sonia’s tenure when the party’s offshoots usurped its political space in West Bengal, Maharashtra, Andhra Pradesh and Meghalaya.