Can the Congress Party Survive Without a Gandhi at the Helm?

Will having a non-Gandhi at the helm of the grand old party help change the parties fate? Tune in!

The question of a Congress without a Gandhi at the helm has been compounding over the years. But the question after every meeting has remained unanswered.

(Photo: Namita Chauhan/The Quint)

Post the 2022 Assembly election results, two things became abundantly clear from the final scoreboard: first, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) proved that it remains a formidable force and second, the Congress party seems to be in a free fall.

To rectify this crisis, on Wednesday, 16 March, a group of 18 Congress leaders – a mix of G-23 dissidents and others – met at the senior leader Ghulam Nabi Azad’s house. Here they decided that the grand old party needs a “collective, inclusive leadership.” They also demanded that the Congress needs to be proactive to create a platform with other “like-minded parties to take on the BJP in 2024.”

Before this, the Congress Working Committee, the party's top decision-making body, also held a meeting on 13 March. The five-hour-long meeting, however, reached the déjà vu conclusion of the party leadership consisting of Sonia Gandhi, Rahul Gandhi and Priyanka Gandhi Vadra offering to step down from their respective roles and then the CWC unanimously refusing to accept their resignations and passing a resolution to let them continue.

The question of a Congress without a Gandhi at the helm has been compounding over the years, especially after the G-23 leaders stood up in 2020, demanding sweeping organisational change. But the question after every meeting has remained unanswered.

And the resounding rejection of the party in the recently concluded elections poses the next big question: where does the Congress go from here? Is a change in leadership the only answer to move ahead?

Joining me today to discuss this are political analysts and senior journalists Arati Jerath and Javed Ansari.