Though the party has enjoyed unconditional support from across the country until recent times, after the change of guard in Delhi in 2014, Congress has been witnessing a regular attrition of senior leaders.
New Delhi: The resignation of veteran Congress leader Ghulam Nabi Azad from all party posts, including the primary membership, has once again stoked a debate on why are prominent faces leaving the Grand Old Party which has ruled for more than 50 years in this country.
Though the party has enjoyed unconditional support from across the country until recent times, after the change of guard in Delhi in 2014, Congress has been witnessing a regular attrition of senior leaders. From Himanta Biswa Sarma to Ghulam Nabi Azad, over 50 politicians have dumped the party and almost all of them highlighted the same problem — the working style of the party.
The central leadership has always downplayed the resignations of party leaders but the departure of big faces is not only a shock but also should it act as a wakeup call for Congress to mend its ways. Party leaders, on many occasions, criticise those who leaves their camp and name them defectors, opportunists, traitors, etc but rather, they should introspect on what is going wrong.
Analysing the resignations from Congress since Narendra Modi registered a landslide victory in the Centre in 2014 makes it evident that it is not only a small section of disgruntled party leaders. Resignations have come from across the party spectrum. And it is not that all leaders have joined the BJP, some have joined smaller regional parties too while others have gone back to their original professions.
According to an analysis of the Association of Democratic Research (ADR), a whopping 222 electoral candidates resigned from the oldest party of the country to join other parties during polls held between 2014 and 2021. A total of 177 MPs and MLAs quit the party during the same period.
In 2015, Himanta Biswa Sarma joined BJP after alleging ignorance in the party by senior leaders. Sarma had accused Rahul Gandhi of playing with his dog rather than meeting party leaders, who had come to talk to him with prior appointment. Senior leader from Odisha, Girdhar Gomang also joined BJP in the same year. Rita Bahuguna Joshi, a prominent face at the time of the Bhatta-Parsaul farmers’ agitation, too, joined BJP alleging humiliation by party leaders. Pema Khandu, Chief Minister of Arunachal Pradesh, had also resigned from Congress and joined BJP. In 2017, Narayan Dutt Tiwari left Congress. Bollywood actress and party’s star campaigner Urmila Matondkar had also resigned in 2019 alleging no respect for her in the party. And so did Priyanka Chaturvedi who made similar allegations. Chaturvedi joined Shiv Sena and was later nominated to Rajya Sabha. Jatin Prasada and RPN Singh, two big faces of the party in Uttar Pradesh, also joined BJP. Both the leaders were feeling cornered in the Congress just like Jyotiraditya Scindia. Abhijit Mukherjee, son of former President Pranab Mukherjee, joined the Trinamool Congress.
Among the recent departures, the name of veteran leader Captain Amarinder Singh also assumes importance as his resignation caused total decimation of the party in Punjab in the recently-held Punjab Assembly polls. From Gujarat, two young faces — Hardik Patel and Alpesh Thakor — have quit the party. Patel has joined BJP while Thakor is active independently. Sushmita Dev is another name from the youth brigade who quit Congress to join Trinamool Congress last year.
Apart from them, there is a galore of names who quit Congress but nothing seems to end Congress’s slumber. Faced by a tough competitor — BJP — the Congress should have found time to make changes to keep the pack together. But for the party, getting over the hangover of the Gandhi family seems to be a distant dream and the same is becoming more difficult in the face of rising number of sycophants of the family who cannot or will not look beyond one family.
