Confronted with Rahul Gandhi’s obstinacy in not withdrawinghis resignation as Congress President, the party has got into the process ofrefining its model of having multiple working presidents to run the party.
After much confabulation and distillation of thought overthe new heirarchy, the party leadership is reportedly veering around to theconsensus view that there should be two working presidents, with one of thempreferably being from southern India. There is also a proposal that the workingpresidents should be from among the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes.
Some names have reportedly been proposed in this connection,said party sources. They include Sushilkumar Shinde and Mallikarjun Kharge,both Scheduled Caste leaders. In the mix is Jyotiraditya Scindia as well sothat the younger element is also assuaged.
The sources said the new set-up could be in place before theBudget session of Parliament.
The party has been forced to think of this alternative modelto the one existing now because, despite the pressure being made to bear onhim, Rahul Gandhi has insisted that he will not stay Congress presidentfollowing the party’s rout in the Lok Sabha polls.
Meanwhile, the Gandhis have decided that they will distancethemselves from the party.
The party had earlier considered a proposal for threeworking presidents, one each from the north, south and eastern India, andperhaps a fourth from western India.
The crisis in the leadership has directly pitted the oldguard against the Young Turks and party sources said that this clash iscontinuing and there appears to be little sign that it will get resolved in ahurry.
The sources also said that regional satraps who, in theopinion of the party leadership, did not contribute wholeheartedly to theCongress campaign are likely to pay a price. One of them is Rajasthan ChiefMinister Ashok Gehlot, still upset that his son, Vaibhav lost the Lok Sabhaelection to the Jodhpur seat. He had blamed state Congress President and DeputyChief Minister Sachin Pilot for the loss. However, they are now apparentlytrying to keep up appearances in public in a show of unity.
The Congress outreach on caste is said to be part of aconscious effort to find a counter to the BJP’s all-India reach. The BJP hassuccessfully battled its image of being an upper caste party and come up trumpsin these elections by fielding a large number of candidates who were not fromthe upper caste. The Congress is still seen to be an upper caste party, more soin the Hindi belt.