As Rahul Gandhi Resigns, India’s Founding Dynasty Nears an End
By NihaMasih
New Delhi
Rahul Gandhi announced his resignation as president of India’s main opposition party, the Indian National Congress, in a move that could mark the end of the country’s most storied political dynasty.
In May, the Congress party, as it is better known, suffered a humiliating defeat when voters delivered a landslide reelection victory to Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his Hindu-nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party, or BJP.
Gandhi’s resignation leaves a void at the top of his party and epitomizes the broader disarray of India’s opposition, which has no leader who can match Modi in stature and popularity.
Days after the national election result, Gandhi, 49, told his party that he was stepping down to take responsibility for the loss. Ever since, Congress leaders have tried to persuade him to stay.
But Gandhi appeared to rule out that possibility Wednesday. In a four-page farewell letter, he laid out the reasons for his resignation and relinquished any major role in determining the future of the party that has been led by four generations of his family.
“Rebuilding the party requires hard decisions,” Gandhi wrote. “It is important for someone new to lead our party.”
In his resignation letter, Gandhi criticized the ideology of the ruling BJP, which views India as a fundamentally Hindu nation rather than a secular republic as envisioned by its founders.
“Every living cell in my body resists their idea of India,” Gandhi said. “Where they see differences, I see similarity. Where they see hatred, I see love.”
He also said that India’s institutions — its media, judiciary and election commission — were no longer independent but subservient to the BJP. “We didn’t fight a political party in the 2019 election,” he said. “We fought the entire machinery of the Indian state.”
Gandhi’s resignation represents the end of an era for the Congress party, which has dominated Indian politics for much of the country’s post-independence history. His great-grandfather Jawaharlal Nehru was India’s first prime minister. His grandmother Indira Gandhi and his father, Rajiv Gandhi, served as prime minister. Both were assassinated. (The family is not related to Mohandas Gandhi, the revered leader of India’s struggle for independence.)
After the death of Rajiv Gandhi, his Italian-born wife, Sonia Gandhi — Rahul Gandhi’s mother — led the Congress party and oversaw its return to power in 2004. Rahul Gandhi became party president in 2017 but could never shake the BJP’s portrait of him as the ineffectual scion of a corrupt dynasty. Modi, meanwhile, emphasized his humble roots and self-reliant journey to political power.
“This is certainly the lowest point for the Congress party in its long history,” said Zoya Hasan, a retired political scientist at Jawaharlal Nehru University. With his talk of love and compassion, Rahul Gandhi seemed ill suited for a moment when aggressive nationalism was ascendant. He “doesn’t seem cut out for this type of politics,” Hasan said.
Gandhi will remain in India’s Parliament, where he represents a constituency in the southern state of Kerala. But his resignation Wednesday left a leadership vacuum in the Congress party. It remains unclear who will become its next president. A party spokesman did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Rahul’s younger sister, Priyanka Gandhi Vadra, took on an official role with the party during the election campaign, but she is not expected to succeed him. It is also unlikely that his mother, Sonia Gandhi, who is a member of Parliament and a senior figure in the party, would fill that role.
Rahul Gandhi’s resignation carries “a kind of promise and potential for the Congress,” said Rasheed Kidwai, a political commentator and the author of a biography of Sonia Gandhi. “There is scope for the Congress to revive itself as long as it remains united.”
Shashi Tharoor, a senior leader of the party, echoed that sentiment on Twitter. “The time for renewal is now,” he wrote in response to Rahul Gandhi’s resignation.
NalinKohli, a spokesman for the BJP, told Asian News International that it is “up to [Gandhi] whether he continues or resigns.” Unlike the “family-driven” Congress party, Kohli said, the BJP “is run by democracy.” – The Washington Post
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