The quiet whispers of a mother-son rift are building into sustained murmurs. Congressmen believe there are growing differences between party president Sonia Gandhi and vice president Rahul Gandhi on the contours of the organisational shakeup about to be undertaken to revive the party’s sinking fortunes.
“What Rahul considers a cancer, for Sonia it is just a cold,” remarked a senior Congress leader.
The disagreements relate not just to the diagnosis of what ails the Congress but also how to treat that malady. Specifically, mother and son differ on their approach to politics and the choice of people to steer the Grand Old Party into the future, say party insiders.
People close to Rahul Gandhi say he is determined to change the party’s functioning and its leaders’ “approach to politics” through internal polls. But the degree of polls he envisions (perhaps deciding even the membership of the Congress Working Committee through them) is not in line with his mother’s view.
There are several other issues the two disagree on: the kind of role organisations such as the Indian Youth Congress should play, the mechanism to put in place to monitor the performance of office-bearers, and the distribution of tickets at election time, say sources.
Non-political aides
Still, it is the choice of people for the party that has become the biggest bone of contention.
The Congress vice president is said to naturally lean away from unremarkable politicians, and most of his team members are not seasoned political animals. His constant companion Kanishka Singh was an investment banker before entering politics. Meenakshi Natarajan was hardly known in Congress circles before he picked her to contest from Mandsaur in Madhya Pradesh in the 2009 general election. Mohan Gopal, considered one of Rahul Gandhi’s mentors, was a full-time academician before joining the Congress.
Most other aides of the Nehru-Gandhi scion also generally come from non-political backgrounds. Even among the politicians he has promoted – be it Madhusudan Mistri or Jairam Ramesh or CP Joshi or Mohan Prakash – hardly anyone has a well-entrenched position in the party.
“It is this tendency of Rahul to rely solely on non-political players that has become a problem for his mother,” a senior Congress leader said, while expressing unhappiness with the manner the party vice president wants to revamp the entire organisation. “While Rahul considers senior leaders deadwood and wants to remove them ruthlessly, Sonia does not see them as a burden. She believes in expanding the leadership structure not by removing the old guard but by developing a unity of purpose among leaders belonging to older and younger generations.”
By all accounts, the differences are acute. Rahul Gandhi’s aides complain that he did not have a free hand even after becoming the party vice president. Nevertheless, those aware of the churn in the Congress assert that Sonia Gandhi does not want to be an obstacle despite the disagreements, and that she wants her son to get a free hand and a greater sense of accommodation.
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“What Rahul considers a cancer, for Sonia it is just a cold,” remarked a senior Congress leader.
The disagreements relate not just to the diagnosis of what ails the Congress but also how to treat that malady. Specifically, mother and son differ on their approach to politics and the choice of people to steer the Grand Old Party into the future, say party insiders.
People close to Rahul Gandhi say he is determined to change the party’s functioning and its leaders’ “approach to politics” through internal polls. But the degree of polls he envisions (perhaps deciding even the membership of the Congress Working Committee through them) is not in line with his mother’s view.
There are several other issues the two disagree on: the kind of role organisations such as the Indian Youth Congress should play, the mechanism to put in place to monitor the performance of office-bearers, and the distribution of tickets at election time, say sources.
Non-political aides
Still, it is the choice of people for the party that has become the biggest bone of contention.
The Congress vice president is said to naturally lean away from unremarkable politicians, and most of his team members are not seasoned political animals. His constant companion Kanishka Singh was an investment banker before entering politics. Meenakshi Natarajan was hardly known in Congress circles before he picked her to contest from Mandsaur in Madhya Pradesh in the 2009 general election. Mohan Gopal, considered one of Rahul Gandhi’s mentors, was a full-time academician before joining the Congress.
Most other aides of the Nehru-Gandhi scion also generally come from non-political backgrounds. Even among the politicians he has promoted – be it Madhusudan Mistri or Jairam Ramesh or CP Joshi or Mohan Prakash – hardly anyone has a well-entrenched position in the party.
“It is this tendency of Rahul to rely solely on non-political players that has become a problem for his mother,” a senior Congress leader said, while expressing unhappiness with the manner the party vice president wants to revamp the entire organisation. “While Rahul considers senior leaders deadwood and wants to remove them ruthlessly, Sonia does not see them as a burden. She believes in expanding the leadership structure not by removing the old guard but by developing a unity of purpose among leaders belonging to older and younger generations.”
By all accounts, the differences are acute. Rahul Gandhi’s aides complain that he did not have a free hand even after becoming the party vice president. Nevertheless, those aware of the churn in the Congress assert that Sonia Gandhi does not want to be an obstacle despite the disagreements, and that she wants her son to get a free hand and a greater sense of accommodation.
