congress: May the best loyalist win the polls today


Meanwhile, in the Democratic Monarchy of the Indian National Congress, a new president will emerge out of the tent today. This will be the first non-Windsor… sorry, Nehru-Gandhi president since kept the seat warm for Sonia Gandhi from 1996 to 1998, the 14th with a non-Nehru, non-Gandhi surname. Does this mean that the Bastille has been stormed? If the past is any indicator, it’s not quite the end of aristocracy in the NSGOPTD (Not So Grand Old Party These Days). Monday saw 9,497 Congress members – that’s 95% of 9,915 card-carrying members – cast their votes across 68 booths in India.

Some Congressmen have even made hay while the sun shone down on them on voting day – one of those rare occasions, of late, where a Congress victory is a certainty – by saying that it is only their party and their party alone that can elect its party president, thereby showing true democratic credentials. It would be impolite to break this reverie of theirs especially on a pleasant, sunny day.

There are two contenders – after the earth mysteriously opened and gobbled up Ashok Gehlot from the fray – a man who knows his split infinitives in the English language and is a Sonia Gandhi loyalist; and another man with a long experience in hard-nosed ground-level politics and is a Sonia Gandhi loyalist. It’s fair to say, may the best loyalist win.



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