Rahul Gandhi to be elevated to Congress president: Will it change party fortunes?

At a time when BJP is plotting a Congress-mukt Bharat, India’s grand old party is planning to coronate Rahul Gandhi as the president of the Congress. A top party official told News 18 said that confusion over twin leadership won’t exist for a long time as his ascension to the top post is imminent. [caption id=“attachment_2789440” align=“alignleft” width=“380”] Congress Vice-President Rahul Gandhi. File photo. PTI[/caption] Reports suggest that the party is also planning to induct younger people and the older members will be asked to take a step back to make way for the new order. Struggling to find relevance in the current political landscape, the party hopes to gain ground just ahead of the 2017 Uttar Pradesh Assembly elections with the organisational overhaul. Speculations around the elevation of the Congress vice-president has been doing the rounds for quite sometime. However, not everyone with the party are happy about the takeover by the Gandhi scion. According to News 18, many of the seniors are uncomfortable with Rahul’s style of functions, want his mother to remain the president. Moreover, under Rahul’s leadership have come under fire after the party’s many electoral defeats. According to India Today, Rahul is finalising the list of new office bearers. A ‘chintan shivir’ is also in the pipepline. In fact, the report added that senior leaders like Digvijaya Singh and Kamal Nath have called for “a major surgery to remove the deadwood”. A close aide to Rahul was quoted by India Today saying that the party vice-president have owned responsibilities of the recent defeats without being in full command, but all that is soon to change. Meanwhile, Sonia and Rahul cancelled their rallies in Gujarat due to poor response, reported The Times of India. Vijay Rupani, the state BJP president was quoted as saying, “The election results from six states have greatly disappointed the Congress high command.” He added that the people of Gujarat are not interested in listening to the Congress leaders. In a _Firstpost_ piece, Nalini R Mohanty wrote, the Congress’ predicament is such that it is wilting under the weight of anti-incumbency where it is in power and it is not able to bounce back to power where it is in the opposition.  She added that the Nehru-Gandhi dynasty will be the key to the future of the party: If the leadership is incapable of infusing new zeal in what is quickly turning into a moribund party, then it will pass into history.