Sonia Gandhi back to her seat, pressure for UP polls

This article was last updated on April 16, 2022

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On Thursday, just a week after her return from US and following a surgery, Congress President Sonia Gandhi, attended Central Election Committee (CEC) meeting and finalized tickets for some seats for the next year’s Assembly elections in Uttar Pradesh. But the tussle within the Congress and the Government, in the last two months revealed the dependence of the party on Sonia.

"Can you replace a leadership? Leadership is leadership," said senior Congress leader Oscar Fernandes. The ferocious show of loyalty is expected to come from a Congressman, but it also exposes the excessive confidence on one person – Sonia Gandhi.

After taking over the charge, Sonia has chosen the politically significant Uttar Pradesh elections to be her first task. The meeting attended by Prime Minister Dr. Manmohan Singh, decided tickets for about 61 seats.

"Sonia Gandhi was very happy. I was unable to realize that she had a surgery," said Congress General Secretary Digvijay Singh after the meeting. Sonia held the meeting just a day after the debate of Narendra Modi versus Rahul Gandhi as prime ministerial candidates in 2014 was thrown up. The sense of glide and loss of direction within the party started to begin even as BJP seemed to have an upper hand.

In Sonia’s absence, the Congress almost handed over the cash-for-votes scam issue to the BJP in Parliament. Factionalism within the Congress has also come out in open, with many MPs pointing fingers at senior ministers for the failure in dealing properly with the Anna movement.

Alliance trouble has also surfaced, with Mamata Banerjee thwarting the Prime Minister by refusing to go to  Bangladesh at the eleventh hour. It also showed that even the four-member committee devised by her, under the supervision of Rahul Gandhi has failed to replace Sonia, who was away for treatment. Rahul has often spoken about inner party’s democratic organization. But, Sonia is back to work, exposing once again how much the party depends on her.

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