Congress G-23: Why Ghulam Nabi Azad Could Never Have Confronted the Party

Die-hard Gandhi family loyalist Ghulam Nabi Azad was always an unlikely choice as leader of a dissident group. It’s no surprise, therefore, that the anticipated rebellion by the G-23 has turned out to be a damp squib.Despite two dinner meetings with the disgruntled and frustrated leaders and a fiery interview by Kapil Sibal demanding that the Gandhis step aside, Azad has readily smoked the peace pipe with Sonia Gandhi. No need for a leadership change, he said after meeting her, and took the wind out of the sails of the rebels. With that statement of his, the G-23 collapsed like a pricked balloon.Congress circles abound with whispers that the Gandhis have struck “a deal” with him and assured him a Rajya Sabha seat in return for his support. Given the party’s shrinking footprint across states, it’s impossible to even hazard a guess where he would be elected from. Azad is certainly no one’s fool to believe such a promise, even if it were made.Anyone familiar with Azad’s history and meteoric rise in the Congress would have anticipated this ignominious end to a rebellion led by him. Azad could never have – would never have – dared to confront and challenge Sonia Gandhi. He owes far too much to the party’s first family. Certainly, as block president of the Youth Congress in a remote village in Jammu, when he started his political career, he could never have imagined how far he would go had he not been spotted by Sanjay Gandhi in 1978.Punjab Is a Wake-Up Call. Leadership Crisis Can Wreck Congress Like many others in the Congress, Azad may have issues with Rahul Gandhi, but after Sonia once again threw her protective pallu around her children at the recent Congress Working Committee meeting by offering to make any “sacrifice”, including resigning, Azad knew the game was over. So did many others in the G-23, including Anand Sharma and Mukul Wasnik, to name a few. Like Azad, they, too, are beneficiaries of the Gandhi family’s trust and largesse and would hesitate to take Sonia head on.Azad’s political career is inextricably entwined with the Gandhis. It was Sanjay Gandhi who discovered him when he was a small player in Jammu and Kashmir, appointed him president of the Jammu & Kashmir Youth Congress, and then had him elected to the Lok Sabha in 1980 from Maharashtra at the young age of 31, even though Azad had nothing to do with that state.Sanjay died in an unfortunate plane crash soon after that, but his brother and successor, Rajiv Gandhi, soon realised what had endeared Azad to Sanjay and made full use of his talent for political management. Rajiv appointed him president of the All India Youth Congress in 1980, and very soon, Azad was a Union Minister, first in Indira Gandhi’s government and later in Rajiv’s cabinet.A messy controversy forced Azad to quit his ministerial post in 1987, but that did not stop Rajiv from appointing him general secretary of the Congress. In fact, the man from Jammu, at 38, was the youngest general secretary at that time. His status as the first among equals was underlined by the fact that he was allotted a room at headquarters reserved for party presidents in the past.It’s Congress That’s ‘Shrunk’, Not G-23. What Should Gandhis Do?Over the years, Azad proved himself so useful to the Gandhis as a manager, advisor and jack-of-all-trades that he became indispensable to the family. The list of the tasks he was assigned on behalf of the party is long and varied, as the party made full use of his abilities to make friends and influence people across the political spectrum, arrange crowds at the snap of his fingers, suggest ways to wriggle out of every crisis and handle funds and resources on behalf of his leader.When Sonia Gandhi took over as president in 1998, Azad’s envious rivals in the party hoped his fortunes would dip because of his closeness to Narasimha Rao when he was the Prime Minister. Incredibly, Azad made a seamless transfer and Sonia displayed her trust in him by sending him to Bellary to manage her very first election campaign for the Lok Sabha.In fact, it is believed in Congress circles that Azad suggested Bellary largely to outwit the BJP and the Vajpayee government, which was convinced that Sonia would make her electoral debut from Medak in Andhra Pradesh, Indira Gandhi’s safe haven after she lost the election from Rae Bareli in the Janata Party wave of 1977.The palace intrigue that is the hallmark of Congress politics ultimately took its toll and Azad was soon overtaken by Ahmed Patel as Sonia’s chief political manager and advisor. But he remained part of her inner circle.Azad and Patel had an interesting relationship, which befuddled many in the Congress. They were rivals and yet bound by their loyalty to the Gandhi family.In fact, there is a theory in the Congress that the G-23 was formed not to challenge Sonia Gandhi but to force her to retire Rahul and replace him with Priyanka. Sonia loyalists, including Patel and Azad, found Rahul too prickly and temperamental to deal with, and got along far better with Priyanka, who seemed to have better communication skills and more rapport with voters than her brother.BJP & Kashmir: Is Padma Award to Ghulam Nabi Azad Just ‘Appropriation’ Politics?Azad, like many in the G-23, certainly had no intention of leading a rebellion against Sonia. It was leaders like Sibal, Shanker Sinh Vaghela, Sandeep Dikshit and others, without any obligations to the family for their politics, who were pushing buttons in the G-23 for a revolt.They failed because like Azad, few in the Congress want to take the family head on. The Congress has several strong state leaders still like DK Sivakumar in Karnataka, but most of them refused to support a split in the party.In the final analysis, Azad simply reflects what the Congress is today: wedded to the family, indebted for political largesse received over the years, and emasculated by loyalty to fight the Gandhis.2022 Elections: Cong's Fall Is Unique in the Global Crisis of Social Democracy (Arati R Jerath is a Delhi-based senior journalist. She tweets @AratiJ. This is an opinion piece and the views expressed above are the author’s own. The Quint neither endorses nor is responsible for the same.)

BECOME A MEMBER

Congress G-23: Why Ghulam Nabi Azad Could Never Have Confronted the Party

The Congress leader owes far too much to the Gandhi family.

Read Latest News and Breaking News at The Quint, browse for more from opinion

Topics: Congress Ghulam Nabi Azad