Stormy Congress fight breaks out in virtual meeting; Manmohan Singh lambasted

The Congress party’s top leadership came to blows, albeit virtually, over a heated video-conferencing meeting that was held recently, as per highly-placed sources. The virtual meeting was attended by Members of Parliament (MPs) of the Congress party, and reportedly witnessed a dramatic fight wherein two sitting Congress MPs lambasted the party’s senior national leadership and, in particular, former Prime Minister Dr. Manmohan Singh for the dismal electoral performances of 2014 and 2019. 

'Manmohan Singh lambasted by Rahul camp'

Top sources told Republic World that Congressmen and Rajya Sabha MPs KC Venugopal and Rajiv Satav specifically spoke out aggressively against Manmohan Singh’s leadership in UPA II. Both Venugopal and Satav are said to be in the close circle of Rahul Gandhi. The massive fight that erupted at the virtual meeting could be part of the overall soaring tensions between the old guard and the new guard of the Congress party. 

Sources said that the duo held the dreadful UPA government record, ineptitude in leadership and failure in governance of Manmohan Singh accountable for the present dim state of the Congress party. Manmohan Singh was also attacked by the duo and held responsible for the flop show in the consequent general elections in 2014 and 2019. What’s more is that the comments were made in the virtual presence of not only Manmohan Singh, but also UPA heavyweights Sonia Gandhi, Anand Sharma, P Chidambaram, AK Antony and Kapil Sibal.  

Controversy snowballs onto social media 

In what seemed to be a fallout of the battle at the virtual meeting, the Congress war soon spilt on to social media. The outpouring of statements on Twitter from Congressmen, incubated with a divide within, seems to corroborate the continued fragility and lack of cohesion of the Congress party vis-a-vis its search for future leadership and direction. 

Congress loyalists like Manish Tewari took to Twitter to make public the dissonance within. “In @INCIndia unfortunately some ill -informed ‘s would rather take swipes at Dr. Manmohan Singh led UPA govt than fight NDA/BJP,” Tewari tweeted. 

Soon Tewari’s views against the views of Venugopal and Satav were backed by other members of the Congress leadership including former UPA Minister Milind Deora who raised questions regarding the attempt to taint Manmohan Singh’s legacy from within the party. “Could he [Manmohan Singh] have ever imagined that some from his own party would dismiss his years of service to the nation & seek to destroy his legacy - that, too, in his presence?”

Former UPA II Minister and Gandhi family loyalist Anand Sharma also took to social media expressing his disapproval of the trend from within his party to pin the blame on Manmohan Singh.  “Congressmen must be proud of UPA's legacy. No party disowns or discredits its legacy. Nobody expects the BJP to be charitable and give us credit but our own should respect and not forget,” Sharma said as part of a trail of tweets. 

While the huge war of words at the meeting is being seen as a prolonged power tussle between the Rahul Gandhi camp and the Old Guard of the Congress, the fact of the matter is that it comes at a time that the party is being seen as unstable given that it was just last month that we saw the stormy exit of Jyotiraditya Scindia and Sachin Pilot from the party- exits which were also stemmed from differences with the top leadership.