Veteran Congress leader Ghulam Nabi Azad, on account of his seniority and stature, is recognised as the face of the contentious letter that he, along with 22 other partymen, signed on and sent to president Sonia Gandhi. The letter demanded sweeping reforms in the organisation, including elections at all levels going up to the Congress Working Committee (CWC), the party's highest decision-making body.
However, a video is now getting circulated in Congress circles, which replays his speech at the party's plenary session held in Delhi in March 2018, in which he moved a proposal asking the All India Congress Committee (AICC) to authorise the then newly-elected party president Rahul Gandhi to nominate members to the CWC.
Azad had, as a prelude to moving the proposal, noted that the party's constitution provided for election of the AICC, as also elections to the post of party president and state and district presidents. He said there is also a provision for electing members of the CWC in the constitution. “Many national presidents have led the party in its 133-year-old long history, and they were elected, but on very few occasions, less than a dozen times, election of the working committee took place. On majority of the occasions, the All India Congress Committee (AICC) left it to the national president to constitute the Congress Working Committee (CWC),” he had said.
He had noted that it was left to the party president to find a balance in the committee in the midst of the competing demands of regional aspirations in the vast country and try and give representation to all the regions. “Regional balance and other considerations have to be looked at, and perhaps for some reason, as a tradition, it has been left to the Congress president,” Azad had then said. He had then moved the proposal before the AICC to authorise Rahul to constitute the CWC, asking the participants to raise their hands if they were in agreement. He had then declared: “It gives me great happiness that the proposal has been passed unanimously.”
In the letter, Azad, along with other leaders sent to Sonia earlier this month, which created a furore in the Congress and which was seen as questioning the leadership of the Gandhis, it was said that sweeping reforms were required in the party, and this included elections at all levels.
At the CWC meeting called on August 24 in the aftermath of the letter, the authors of the missive were castigated and their intent questioned. The resolution passed at the end of the meet reaffirmed the party's firm faith in the leadership of Rahul and Sonia. In response to the demands made in the letter, it authorised Sonia to carry out necessary organisational changes.
Azad, in an interview to a news agency a couple of days after the meeting, reiterated the demand for elections to the CWC, saying unless an elected body leads the party, it will continue to sit in the opposition for the next 50 years.
"When you contest the election, at least 51 per cent is with you and you contest the election against only two to three people within the party. A person who will get 51 per cent of votes will be elected. Others will get ten or 15 per cent votes. The person who wins and gets charge of the post of party president, it means that 51 per cent people are with him. The election has the benefit that when you fight elections, at least your party is 51 per cent behind you. Right now, the person who becomes president might not even have one per cent support. If CWC members are elected, then they cannot be removed. So what is the problem?” he said.
As if responding to the question being asked within the party and outside as to why he did not demand the changes earlier and if insecurities with regard to his own political future guided the timing of the endeavour, Azad said, “May be, we should have pushed for it 10-15 years ago. Now, we are losing election after election, and if we have to come back, we need to strengthen our party by holding elections.”