Congress can ignore warning at its peril

The details slipped out to the media from the upcoming book of Makhan Lal Fotedar, so rock-solid a loyalist of former Prime Minister Indira Gandhi that he was twitted over the years for being a “darbari”, or courtier, of the Nehru-Gandhis, cannot but deeply embarrass the Gandhis — Congress chief Sonia and her son Rahul — and also the Congress Party in the rudely competitive atmosphere of our day, not least when the Bihar Assembly election is under way.

Mr Fotedar has literally laid into the Congress president and the party vice-president. He believes the younger Gandhi is no leadership material and suggests that his mother has virtually foisted him on the party. He is also of the view that sooner or later the party will have no choice but to rid itself of these leaders. Indira Gandhi’s one-time secretary and political lightweight who, after her passing, was elevated to the Congress Working Committee and nominated to the Rajya Sabha, professes that Rahul’s sister Priyanka Vadra is leadership material, and that this had been confided to him by none other than Ms Vadra’s redoubtable grandmother shortly before she was assassinated.

None of this need be taken seriously, of course. Mr Fotedar is merely tapping into, or recycling, the popular discourse in the language of an analyst, and this has it that Rahul has proved a flop and that Priyanka is the one to watch. Excerpts from the book that have appeared in the media make no reference to any hitherto undisclosed material that is verifiable, but are in the nature of Mr Fotedar’s thinking in the backdrop of the Congress Party’s electoral misfortunes in recent times. Positive references to Priyanka may well be to ward off the sense that he is being ungrateful in the autumn of his life.

It is also known that the old bag-carrier of the Nehru-Gandhis has been quite upset, and for quite some years, with the present Congress leadership for not re-nominating him to the Upper House or seeking his counsel even informally, and that is what makes him extremely bitter. Even if all of this is valid, it will be a mistake for Sonia and Rahul Gandhi to disregard Mr Fotedar, for he does seem to reflect continuing popular middle class discontent with the Congress, and the casting of the Gandhis in not very favourable light.  This may have been less the case if Rahul had made a mark with the quality of his speeches or through a display of sturdy organisational sense. He does press the right buttons frequently, but more as a gadfly and less as a carrier of the Nehru-Gandhi mantle whose presence is weighty and articulations thought-provoking. It is time the Gandhis shone a light on themselves.