For the Congress, humiliating a much respected, incumbent Chief Minister by forcing him out of office — as has happened with Punjab’s Captain Amarinder Singh — without giving him the opportunity to answer the charges posed by an upstart challenger is an act of political hara-kiri. It sends out a range of negative messages, not just to the redoubtable Captain, but to the rank and file.
Even in a party with a strong national leadership, this sort of cavalier behaviour would, in the long term, weaken its foundations. In the Congress, a mere shadow of the Grand Old Party it once was, and where the central leadership today lacks both gravitas and authority, it is nothing short of disastrous.
Today, Sonia Gandhi is interim President and remains in the background. Her heir, Rahul Gandhi, is not President, but he and, increasingly, his sister, Priyanka Gandhi Vadra, who is general secretary for Uttar Pradesh, run the party. They do so with the assistance of those referred to in Congress circles as “their staff members”, not seasoned veterans like the late Ahmed Patel, or the likes of Ambika Soni or Ghulam Nabi Azad, who command respect and have the experience to cool tempers and sort out factional fights. Indeed, Sonia Gandhi’s politics by consensus has been given a total go-by and been replaced with arbitrary decisions based on advice given by those with little experience, or worse, agendas that have nothing to do with the welfare of the party.