Congress President Rahul Gandhi took eight long months to finalise and approve the list of 401 office-bearers in Gujarat Congress. List of Gujarat Congress office-bearers is even bigger than All India Congress Committee (AICC) office-bearers.
Gujarat Congress has 22 vice presidents whereas AICC has none! The humongous list has 43 general secretaries and 169 secretaries for Gujarat. AICC has 12 and 169 respectively. It is not yet clear what took Rahul Gandhi eight months to finalise the list. Last year, the same list had less than 150 members.
Distributing everyone a piece of the power pie, Gujarat Congress released the list with an eye on 2019 elections. Along with this, a list consisting of in-charge in each of 26 Lok Sabha constituencies was also declared.
Controversial leader Alpesh Thakor continues to be a secretary in AICC. Alpesh Thakore allegedly incited a mob to take to violence that led to an exodus of North Indians from Gujarat. Congress MLA Geniben Thakor caught spreading violence on camera, is the general secretary in the new list. She had earlier declared if it were up to her, she would kill all BJP leaders and go to jail. Congress leader Virji Thummar who hit a woman police officer at a rally is a ‘permanent invitee’.
Reports say the list aims to appease the disgruntled members ahead of general elections. This would not be surprising considering infighting has plagued Congress in many states recently. Poll-bound Rajasthan has witnessed a war between Ashok Gehlot and Sachin Pilot, while Jyotiraditya Scindia and Digvijaya Singh have drawn swords in Madhya Pradesh.
Whereas in Chhattisgarh, Congress workers created a ruckus after the party released the final list of candidates for assembly elections.
With the war now reaching Gujarat and Congress doling out favours to keep the party together certain things become extremely evident. The Congress party lost its ideology a long time ago. For political parties to stay united in the turbulence of Indian politics, a central idea that binds the party workers and members are essential. It is telling that for the Grand Old Party is has now become imperative to hand out favours to ensure that their leaders don’t abandon the party.
With the ideology gone and the dynasty losing sheen, plump posts even if it means sacrificing the party seems to be Rahul Gandhi’s mantra to not only keep the party together but save his throne as the de-facto Prine of the Dynasty.
