The Rahul Gandhi-led Congress finds itself ship-wrecked on a 52-square metre sinking island infested with snakes and surrounded by crocodiles and sharks. That’s the grim picture for the Congress after the just-concluded general elections.
How could the 134-year-old Grand Old Party have done any better than its 52-seat tally, still three short of getting the leader of the opposition status, when it failed to open its account in 20 states and Union Territories (UTs) and could manage to get into double digits only in one state: Kerala? In sharp contrast, the BJP-led NDA won all the seats in 10 states and UTs, and polled more than 50 percent of votes in 15 states and UTs.
This raises the obvious questions about the survivability of the Congress party in general and Rahul Gandhi’s own future in particular. Yes, he offered to resign before the party’s apex decision-making body, the Congress Working Committee (CWC). But the 25-member CWC, dominated by loyalists of the Gandhis, rejected his resignation. Though media reports talk of Rahul still pushing the envelope of his resignation, the question is how would it affect the party anyway?