When was such a discussion about the election of the party president?
It is not being noticed that when was the last time there was such discussion about the election of the national president of a party, as the election of the Congress president is happening now. In India, there is usually no election of the president in the parties. Nothing happens in parties in the name of internal democracy. Every party has a high command, according to which all decisions are taken. Usually, the high command is the chairman or a person of his choice is elected unopposed as the chairman. Many parties have moved towards making their high command a permanent president by eliminating the hassle of elections.
That’s when the Election Commission wrote a letter to the YSR Congress, reprimanding it for its efforts to make Jagan Mohan Reddy the permanent president. He has asked for an answer. Right now when the discussion for the election of Congress President was going on, in the meantime, in two days, the national presidents of two big parties were quietly elected. Four days ago, a meeting of the Rashtriya Janata Dal was held in Patna and Lalu Prasad was elected the President of the party for the 12th time. A day after this, a meeting of the Samajwadi Party was held in Lucknow and Akhilesh Yadav was elected president for the third time. It is also discussed that BJP National President JP Nadda will get another term.
The same was going on in Congress till now. There was no election in Congress for the last 20 years. The last time Sonia Gandhi was challenged by Jitendra Prasad in 2000 but lost badly. After that Sonia continued to be elected president. The tenure of the Speaker was also extended to five years so that there would be no hassle of repeated elections. Sonia Gandhi was the president from 1998 to 2017. After that Rahul Gandhi was elected president. That too was a formality. He was elected president unopposed. After the defeat of the Congress in the 2019 Lok Sabha elections, she resigned, then Sonia Gandhi became the interim president and the system of interim president has been going on for three years. But this time everything has changed. The election of the Congress President is the biggest political event of this time. The equations of how many states are getting worse and worse on the pretext of this election.
This is the first time that there is so much discussion, so much media attention and so much interest about the election of the President of a party. This is also because an entire generation has seen Sonia and Rahul Gandhi as Congress Presidents from birth till they are young. For the first time in the last 24 years, a non-Gandhi is going to become the President of the Congress. That’s why people are interested to know who will be the president, how will he work, whether he will be under the influence of the family or will work independently, what will be the benefit of the party, where will the equation change, etc.
There is also a reason for interest whether the allegation of dynasticism against the Congress will end now? Many BJP leaders including Prime Minister Narendra Modi have been saying that the post of president in Congress is reserved for one family. But now that no one from that family is becoming the president, what about the allegations of dynasticism? Will the allegations of dynasticism against the Congress stop? However, this is unlikely as the BJP has already started saying that whoever becomes the president of the Congress will be a puppet of the Gandhi family. The real power will remain with Sonia and Rahul Gandhi. After the appointment of the new president, it will also be a matter to be seen who uses the real power and how.
