Mrs. Gandhi and her cohorts have finally split the great Indian National Congress and they have done it in an utterly cold calculated and cynical manner. She had clearly made up her mind by December 18 when she had her letter of resignation from the Working Committee delivered to the Congress President, if not by December 9 when she drafted it, and issued the necessary orders to her battalions. And yet even after they had “finally” decided on December 25 to hold the “national convention” on January 1 and 2, the men who spoke for her continued to pretend that they had no intention to quit the Congress. Indeed, only on December 29 Mr. Kamalapati Tripathi, one of her principal confidants, made a statement to the effect that the proposed convention would adopt a political resolution which would not even refer to the recent troubles in the party. A day earlier Mrs. Gandhi was herself present at an AICC function held to mark the 92nd birth anniversary of the organisation. This was an elaborate exercise in deception the like of which this country has not seen for many, many years, not even in 1969 when, too, Mrs. Gandhi had taken the initiative in splitting the party. Last Friday it appeared that a final split might be postponed. But essentially the attempt at deception did not succeed: so much so that no one, literally no one, could have been taken by surprise either by the “demand” from floor of the “convention” for the removal of Mr. Brahmananda Reddi and Mr. Y.B. Chavan from their offices last Sunday or Mrs. Gandhi’s installation as the “Congress President” the next day.
Mrs. Gandhi and her supporters have claimed that they are the Indian National Congress. But they have not substantiated the claim. On the contrary, since only seven out of 20 members resigned from the Working Committee following her own resignation, they were clearly in a minority in that body and for all that is known, their position in the AICC might have been even weaker. They claimed to have secured the signatures of over two-thirds of the AICC members on the requisition move last October and they have said that nearly 400 of them were present at the “convention”. They did not submit the list to scrutiny then and they have not done it now. But the figures are material only for the purpose of determining the size of Mrs. Gandhi’s support. In the present context they are irrelevant. Since all rules in the Congress copybook have been flouted in calling the “convention”, it could not have been entitled to elect Mrs. Gandhi as “Congress” President even if it was clearly established that a majority of the AICC members were present. As such she has not seized the party. She has split it. She should have had the decency to give her creature a new name. But perhaps is too much to expect of her.