First Baru, now Natwar Singh: Why Gandhis are an easy target for personal attacks

What makes the Gandhi family an easy target for visceral attacks? Does it have to with the fact that it has been enjoying importance far disproportionate to what it delivers for the Congress? Or, is it that the inner circle that surrounds it has managed to create too many enemies, both within and outside the party? Being a political outfit the drubbing in the general election is something the Congress can soak in, but the diminishing prestige of the Gandhis, the fulcrum of the party, is certainly not what it can live with. The controversial remarks against the family, particularly Sonia Gandhi, in books published by the former media advisor to the then Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, Sanjaya Baru, and former External Affairs Minister in UPA I, Natwar Singh, have drawn the usual defensive response from the party’s leaders, but it increasingly appears to be lacking the force of conviction. [caption id=“attachment_1651055” align=“alignleft” width=“380”]  Sonia, Rahul and Priyanka Gandhi in a file photo. AFP[/caption] “These people just have an axe to grind against a particular person,” said Jitin Prasada, former Union minister responding to questions on Natwar’s comment. “Mrs Gandhi is one of the kindest and understanding people I have come across. It is disturbing when someone so close to the family makes such baseless allegations. What do they get from cheap publicity?” he added. “Our leadership cares about us and they try their best to accommodate everyone in the best manner possible,” said Salman Khurshid, former External Affairs Minister and a Gandhi family loyalist. “For someone (Natwar Singh) who received so much support and affection from our leader, he could have easily stepped aside momentarily. This happens in public life,” as he referred to the time when Natwar Singh was asked to resign from the cabinet in the wake of the ‘Food for Oil’ scam after the Volcker Committee report was made public. This is not the first time that the Gandhi family is under attack. The fact that they become easy targets was made amply clear by Congress president herself when she angrily reacted to the accusations made by Natwar Singh in his One life is not enough that she wielded more power than Indira Gandhi herself during the UPA tenure of 2004-2014. She was reduced to a powerless entity within months of becoming a widow when Rajiv Gandhi was assassinated during the 1991 election campaign and Congress came to power under PV Narasimha Rao. Even when she was elected as Congress president in 1998, she was subject to her “foreign origin” issue when three senior leaders Sharad Pawar, Tariq Anwar and PA Sangma formed the Nationalist Congress Party in 1999. The difference between then and now is significant. The family is much weaker now and it seems to have lost the ability win votes for the party. Worse, it has failed to provide leadership. The excessive clout it enjoys in the party despite its weaknesses never came out this sharp earlier. The same accusations probably would never have been made had the family been a political force to reckon with. Now with a new government led by Narendra Modi, Sonia baiters like Subramanian Swamy have swung into action. The case against Sonia, Rahul and other senior leaders of the Congress party on the ownership issue of National Herald has highlighted how it is easy to keep hitting at the epicentre of Congress politics. “The Gandhi family has been a prominent part of the Congress party for the past 45 years, since they are in public life, they will be at the receiving end as well,” said Robin Jeffrey, Professor at National University of Singapore and an observer of Indian politics. “It is unfair to say they are being targeted. Because they are the be all and end all of the Congress, they are also going to be the major recipients of the criticism for the party.” Dr Naved Jamal, Assistant Professor, Department of Political Science, Jamia University agrees. “If you attack the institution, the whole edifice collapses. That applies to the Congress party as they have no new or alternative leadership in their party over the years. The opposition wants to finish the real power of the Congress. If you decimate the party high command, then they are actually decimating the Opposition space,” he added. The attacks are not going to end anytime soon. Probably a spectacular revival of the Congress helmed by the Gandhis is the only way out for them.