Congress Stares at a Possible Change of Structure in its Ranks - The New Indian Express

NEW DELHI:Despite being the country’s oldest mainstream political party, even the Congress cannot claim immunity from the internal strife that is the bane of virtually every poiltical outfit in the country.

Particularly, as the prolonged incubation of ‘the new leader’ , Rahul Gandhi, has to come to an end with his emergence from sabbatical and the party’s organisational elections scheduled to be held later this year.

“There’s a churning no doubt…but structural changes do not mean that you throw out people from the party. The Congress has always had a mix of seasoned and young people, you cannot cut the roots of a tree and expect new leaves and branches to appear and grow on it,” senior party leader and former minister Veerappa Moily told Express on Saturday, a tad philosophically.

Hint being that such a drastic move to rid the party of the old guard could be fatal.

Structural change, incidentally, is Rahul’s pet theme, which, according to him, is what the party needs to revitalise itself.

Of the many things that this concept has come to mean, most significant is that the young leader apparently wants the old guard to relinquish their hold over the party to a new order.

It is, apparently, on such an issue of a complete overhaul of the party that he has had a falling-out with his mother, Congress president Sonia Gandhi, and thereafter left on a monastic search for inner truth, all in a huff.

But like any other Congress leader, Moily vehemently denies there is a rift at the top. “There is no conflict between the two leaders on the issue of change(s),” he says, only to add a caveat “it is on the nature of change there could be disagreement”.

This confirms what was being speculated for some time now -- that Rahul had been dissuaded from seeking a Kamaraj-style mass resignation by senior leaders.

It should be noted here that leadership change in the Congress has never been easy. Over the years, this one issue has led to splintering in the party. Moily sees no such danger, but he’s firm on his view that Sonia cannot give up her executive powers in the party, post organisational elections.