'Leadership in cuckoo land, Gandhis should step aside': Kapil Sibal attacks Congress culture

Veteran Congress leader Kapil Sibal has unleashed a scathing attack on the party leadership, asking the Gandhi family to step aside and give a chance to someone else to lead the organisation.

Dismayed over the party's continuing electoral defeats and the reluctance to address the issues plaguing the organisation, Sibal said the “leadership is living in cuckoo land, keeping its eyes shut to the reality that confronts us.”

In an interview with The Indian Express, he said he did not believe that the Congress will not survive without the Gandhis at the helm.

Asked about the party's abysmal performance in the recent round of elections and the Congress Working Committee's decision to allow Sonia Gandhi to continue as interim party president, the former Union minister said, “ The results never surprised me. We have been going downhill since 2014. We have lost state after state. Even where we succeeded we were not been able to keep our flock together. In the meantime, there has been an exodus of some key people…those who had the confidence of the leadership… moving away from the Congress. In the 2022 Assembly elections, too, people who were close to the leadership left them. I was looking at the figures. It is interesting to note that since 2014 about 177 MPs and MLAs and 222 candidates have left the Congress. No other political party has seen this kind of exodus. What happened in the CWC also did not surprise me. For a party after eight years, since 2014, to say that we will have a Chintan Shivir to find out the reasons for this debacle, if for eight years a political party and the leadership is not aware of the reasons for its decline; is awaiting for a Chintan Shivir to find out, is living in cuckoo land: Keeping its eyes shut to the reality that confronts us.”

Recollecting Congress' history of changing its presidents every year, Sibal said, “It’s only recently that we have had this long tenure.”

“The people in the CWC, the prominent leaders of our party in the CWC barring a few exceptions, feel maybe genuinely, that without the Gandhi family, it’s not possible for the Congress to survive. That’s a possible point of view. It’s not a point of view that many of us share. We won’t survive if it is business as usual. We, some of us, tried very hard to convey to the leadership that it is time to reform our processes and revive the Congress and take it to its original glory,” he said.

Asked about the call for Rahul Gandhi to take charge as the party president again, Sibal replied in harsh words. “We are assuming now that Rahul Gandhi is not the president of the Congress and Mrs Gandhi is. Rahul Gandhi went to Punjab and made the announcement that Charanjit Singh Channi will be the Chief Minister. In what capacity did he do that? He is not the president of the party, but he takes all the decisions. He is already the de-facto president. So why are they asking him that he should take back the reins of power. So they want the de facto president to become the de-jure president but it doesn’t matter, he is the de facto president.”

Making it clear that he was not speaking on behalf of any group or against any individual, Sibal said he was only pro-Congress. “I speak today because I am pro-Congress. I will never, will never join another party and over my dead body, the BJP. I will remain in my thoughts and actions a true Congressman but I cannot see the Congress decline and lose its glory in this fashion because people are not willing to listen.”

Slamming the sycophant culture in the party, he said he wanted a ‘sab ki Congress’ while some others want a ‘Ghar ki Congress’.

“I certainly don’t want a ‘Ghar ki Congress’. And I will fight for a ‘sab ki Congress’ till my last breath. This ‘sab ki Congress’ means just not getting together, but getting together all those people in India who don’t want the BJP,” he said. He said former Congress leaders like Mamata Banerjee and Sharad Pawar, who have moved away, must come together.

Asked who could take over if the Gandhis step aside, Sibal said it could be anyone who is acceptable to an elected AICC. “For the Congress not to take advantage of Shashi Tharoor and Manish Tewari in the Lok Sabha is something that I cannot ever imagine as to why that has not been done. A Congress party which does not use the talent of P Chidambaram not just in commenting about the budget and drafting resolutions for the party…his talent is far beyond that,” he said.

Sibal is one of the signatories of the letter written to Sonia Gandhi for bringing reforms within the party, but in the CWC meet on Sunday sources say that Ghulam Nabi Azad and Anand Sharma did not raise the issue of leadership change.

Sonia Gandhi in the CWC on Sunday had offered to step aside from the leadership along with Rahul Gandhi and Priyanka Gandhi Vadra, but was turned down by the CWC.

The Congress Working Committee on Sunday reposed faith in interim party chief Sonia Gandhi after its marathon meeting to discuss the outcome of the Assembly polls. She was also authorised to undertake "necessary and comprehensive" organisational changes.