DEAD LETTER DAY

The August 7 letter to Sonia Gandhi was to be an inflection point, the start of a Congress course correction. But as in the past, family loyalists closed ranks, vilified the ‘letter writers’

- KAUSHIK DEKA

On August 24, the Congress Working Committee (CWC) convened to deliberate on a letter written by a group of leaders to party president Sonia Gandhi. The party’s highest decision-making body concluded with two predictable resolutions—it asked her to continue as president “until such time as circumstances will permit an AICC session to be convened” and authorised her to effect organisational changes as deemed appropriate.

The letter, dated August 7, was signed by at least 23 leaders, and had demanded, among several things, a full-time, active and available leadership and an institutional mechanism for collective leadership, in which “Gandhi family members would be an integral part”. This meant two categorical assertions: the uncertainty over Sonia’s continuation as Congress president must end and the Gandhi family, instead of wielding absolute authority, must exercise power in a collective arrangement. While many saw this as a demand for a non-Gandhi party president, others took it as a signal to Rahul Gandhi—de facto head of the Congress—to practise inclusive decision-making.