EXIT WOUND

MORE THAN THE POWER TUSSLE IN MADHYA PRADESH, IT WAS THE BREAKDOWN OF TRUST BETWEEN HIM AND RAHUL GANDHI THAT LED TO JYOTIRADITYA SCINDIA’S EXIT. WITH THE OLD GUARD STILL CALLING THE SHOTS AND RAHUL BEING “UNRESPONSIVE”, A FEW MORE CONGRESS LEADERS MIGHT FOLLOW IN SCINDIA’S FOOTSTEPS.

- SONI MISHRA

Last week, when Congress leaders exhorted him to rethink his resignation as party president, Rahul Gandhi told them that he would have, if only they, too, had quit with him. Apparently, Rahul was miffed that most of his general secretaries had shied away from taking the blame for the rout in the 2019 Lok Sabha elections.

There was, however, one leader who had stepped down with Rahul—Jyotiraditya Scindia. The young general secretary had quit as the party in-charge of western Uttar Pradesh; the Congress had scored a duck there in the Lok Sabha elections.

But now, Scindia has gone one step further, quitting the party altogether.

When Scindia had given up his post along with Rahul, he wanted to be rewarded for his loyalty. Instead, over the months, he found himself being ignored, if not punished. It stung him, yet he stayed on for close to ten months.

But then, on the morning of March 10, the day his father, Madhavrao Scindia, would have turned 75, he drove to the Lok Kalyan Marg residence of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, where Home Minister Amit Shah was also present, and ended an 18-year association with the Congress.

The seeds had been sown months ago. It was not just that Scindia felt shut out of the power dynamics in Madhya Pradesh, which is dominated by Chief Minister Kamal Nath and senior leader Digvijaya Singh. It was more a result of the breakdown of trust and the snapping of communication lines between him and Rahul.

It seems that Rahul did not like Scindia’s calls for an urgent settlement of the leadership issue, and his statement that the party should collectively decide on who its new president should be. Moreover, the fact that Scindia supported the abrogation of Article 370 and wanted the Congress to adopt a nuanced approach to hindutva did not go down well with Rahul.