With elections in Maharashtra and Haryana over, Congress old guard, holding offices at the party headquarters have got perturbed at the reports of a long-awaited massive reshuffle in the party and speculations that they will have to make a way for the generation next. A group of senior leaders have taken exception to the reports that Congress vice-president, Rahul Gandhi authorised to bring changes in the party, was deciding to ape the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) by sending its senior leaders to political wilderness to vacate posts for younger leaders. Prime minister Narendra Modi in a significant decision didn't include any 70-plus party leader in his cabinet and also gave a younger look to the party's key decision making bodies.
Disturbed at the imminent reshuffle, senior leaders are seeking protection from Congress president Sonia Gandhi, impressing that the party's traditions and conventions of respecting elders should not be trampled. "We have been criticising the BJP for their treatment to LK Advani and Murli Manohar Joshi. How can now Congress also ape Modi by disregarding old leaders, who have given their life to the party," a senior leader at the AICC headquarters asked.
But young Congress leaders, most of them secretaries, are ranting against their seniors blaming them for not allowing a smooth transition. They openly support Rahul Gandhi for engineering a reshuffle. Senior leaders also attribute their defeat from last Lok Sabha to a likely defeat in the Maharashtra and Haryana elections to the leadership deficiencies of Rahul and also his coterie.
The air of suspicion between the old guard and Gen Next has grown to the extent that general secretaries are blaming young leaders for engineering a conspiracy though media to influence the process of change.
The office of Rahul Gandhi, however, has distanced itself from reports suggesting that all senior leaders would be removed from decision making posts and asked to play the role of guides like Advani and MM Joshi. The two, along with Atal Bihari Vajpayee, have been dropped from the party's supreme policy-making body and enrolled in an advisory panel.
Rahul's aides were at pains on Thursday explaining that the Congress vice-president was only planning to rebuild the party with the help of every leader, according to their merit, not age. "There is no question of weeding out senior leaders like 90-year old Motilal Vohra or others like AK Antony, P. Chidambaram, Ahmed Patel, Ghulam Nabi Azad, Anand Sharma and Ambika Soni, who continue to be important in Congress headquarters," they said.
Some leaders believe Rahul, too, would have learnt with experience and choose his new team with greater maturity as some of his past choices have surprised party workers and evoked negative responses. There is, however, a wide ranging anger against former Maharashtra chief minister Prithviraj Chavan, who in a interview a day ahead of polls had blamed senior leaders for various scams.
Meanwhile, Shashi Tharoor, who was removed as party spokesperson recently for showering praise on Modi, had a supporter in Congress General Secretary Digvijay Singh who said that he (Tharoor) was still member of the Congress party and still enjoys a high level of confidence among Congressmen.
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