‘No elected Cong chief, don’t know who is taking decisions’: Sibal seeks CWC meeting amid Punjab crisis

Aditi Tandon

Tribune News Service

New Delhi, September 29

As the Congress implodes in Punjab and exodus of leaders continues, party veteran Kapil Sibal weighed in on what he described as a “heartbreaking” situation and called for a meeting of the working committee for threadbare decisions on the goings-on.

Noting that the crises in Punjab Congress was advantageous to ISI, Sibal, speaking for all his G23 colleagues on Wednesday, said he didn’t know who was taking decisions as there was no elected party president.

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The former minister called for an internal dialogue on sliding Congress image and prospects saying G23 was for strengthening the Congress and would never leave the party ideology.

“In our party at the moment there is no president.

So we don’t know who’s taking decisions. We know yet we don’t know. A senior colleague has asked for the CWC to be convened so that what we can’t speak publicly we can have a dialogue as to why we are in this state,” said Sibal in the first formal interaction by any leader of the G23 that has asked for internal elections in August 2020.

Sibal cited Mahatma Gandhi to say there should not be any monopolies in party structures and conversations should be encouraged.

“We are not those who will leave the ideology of the party and go elsewhere. It is ironic that closest of their aides have left and those they thought were not theirs are still with the party and are seeking to strengthen it,” the veteran said, noting with “heart break” a continuing stream of defections from the party and asking the Congress to introspect why people are leaving.

“I am speaking on the behalf of like-minded Congress men who wrote a letter last year and are awaiting actions by the leadership in respect of election to the post of president, the CWC and the central election committee.

I stand here today with a very heavy heart. I belong to a party with a historic legacy, a party that has through its efforts won us freedom, a party whose leadership in the past we could be proud of. And I can’t see my party in the situation it is today,” lamented Sibal.

He said it “breaks his heart” to see the Congress in its present state when the country is facing serious challenges which only the Congress can battle.

Citing the reported Chinese infiltration in Uttarakhand,

the Afghanistan situation which presents a great danger to JK, the “squandered” PM visit to the US, poverty, and unemployment, Sibal said, “And in that state for the Congress to be in this state saddens me. We are the ones that have to fight together against the government which has no legitimacy to function even for a day but what’s happening?”

“People are leaving us,” rued Sibal mentioning the recent exits of Sushmita Dev, VM Sudheeran, Jitin Prasada, Jyotiraditya Scindia, late president Pranab Mukherjee’s son Abhijit and Lalitesh Tripathi in UP.

The Congress leader said while the defectors could be criticised for leaving, “Congress must introspect why they left, whether there was some fault on our part.”

He urged everyone in the Congress to think of how to take the party forward and strengthen it and appealed to those who have left to come back. “Congress alone can save this republic because the present dispensation is destroying the very foundations of the republic. For this to happen we need an open dialogue, conversations, we need to understand each other’s point of view,” Sibal said.

On Punjab, the veteran lamented that a border state where this (the current crisis after PCC chief Navjot Sidhu’s resignation) is happening to the Congress is advantage Pakistan’s ISI.

“We know the history of Punjab and the rise of extremism there. We know how forces across the border create instability. Congress should make sure they remain united. If someone has an issue it should be discussed and the conversation must take place from the seniormost member of the party. That will take place if there is an elected president, an elected CWC, if the structure is strengthened bottom up,” the leader noted.

He quoted Mahatma Gandhi to call for conversations on the way forward and said “We are all liable to err…In a vast country like this there should be room for all schools of thought. No monopolies should be created in power structures of the country or a party,” Sibal said in some plain speaking to Congress, which is rapidly losing ground in Punjab, one of the only three states where it’s in power on its own.

He said the G23 was not against any individual (Rahul Gandhi) and only wanted to strengthen the party.

“Listen to our point of view. If you don’t accept it, that’s fine but at least listen. We respect your point of view. Allow us a dialogue,” Sibal urged Sonia Gandhi, at a time when Rahul Gandhi, currently calling the shots, has taken a position that “those who wish to leave the Congress and fear the BJP can leave”.

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