Once again, it is back to square one for Congress

It is back to square one for the Congress on the leadership issue with interim party chief Sonia Gandhi made to stay as the president for at least six more months, even as the epistolary crisis unfolding ahead of key Congress Working Committee meeting showed that the party is divided over who should be at the helm in future.

Sonia Gandhi has repeatedly made it clear that a replacement has to be found out sooner and Rahul has not expressed any desire to come back again as Congress president, but there has been no attempt so far in the party to build consensus for the top job around anybody not belonging to the Gandhi family.

The letter by 23 Congress leaders, mostly who have served the party quite long, reflected the desperation at this confusion. Post the CWC meeting, it was decided to set up a committee to look into the issues raised in the letter. The dissenters hoped this would end the ‘ad hocism' in the party.

Though the CWC unanimously adopted a resolution after “extensively deliberating” over the contents of the letter, decided to “unanimously resolve to strengthen the hands of Sonia Gandhi and Rahul Gandhi”, the letter, written by leaders hailing from different regions and belonging to different age groups, points to a serious lack of trust within the party’s hierarchy and the confusion over its fate.

More than being an old guard versus young Turks fight, the CWC on Monday was divided between the signatories to the letter and the loyalists, who debunked the attempt of sending the letter.

This time the divide appears to be among all age groups, with leaders choosing for Sonia, Rahul and even a new leadership. The range of the signatories is interesting: P J Kurien (79) from Kerala in South to Jitin Prasada (46) from UP, from the old guards--two-term Chief Minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda to Leader of Opposition in Rajya Sabha Ghulam Nabi Azad (71) to those handpicked by Rahul Gandhi like Milind Deora.

Deora and others were disparagingly called 'babalog' by some of the veterans in private conversations, a term used to deride the English-speaking social media-savvy young leaders and professionals close to Rahul.

A letter war was also witnessed in 2014 when 14 young AICC secretaries protested the remarks of some senior leaders against Rahul, then party vice-president. They shot off a strongly- worded letter accusing the seniors of hurting the party's interests by publicly criticising Rahul’s ‘silence on critical issues’.

This time the concern over the functioning of the party (from the top) has again been raised but among those critical, even some from Rahul's camp have joined and the expressions used by members in this new ginger group are definitely not palatable to the leadership.

Though the CWC resolution makes a categorical assertion that “no one will be or can be permitted to undermine or weaken the party and its leadership at this juncture”, that realities have changed much was evident.

In 2013, Rahul Gandhi in an open press conference tore an ordinance brought in by the Manmohan Singh government calling it complete nonsense. This time, the same Rahul chose to personally call up former Union Minister Kapil Sibal and clear the air about his remarks after the latter reacted sharply on Twitter to reports that Rahul Gandhi felt the letter writers were playing into the hands of the BJP. Sibal later withdrew the tweet since he “was informed by Rahul Gandhi personally that he never said what was attributed to him.”

Rahul’s “hurt” and the timing of the letter when Sonia was “ill” was defended by some as a son's genuine concern for mother. But politics goes beyond these niceties. After the CWC meeting, the letter writers had a meeting at Azad’s residence. A crisis seems inevitable in the party.