Who is in Rahul Gandhi’s ‘coterie that runs Congress’: Azad’s resignation letter
The biggest problem that the group of 23, which Azad led, has with Rahul Gandhi’s team is that many of them are now in positions of power, including in the Congress Working Committee
In Ghulam Nabi Azad’s five-page resignation note to Congress president Sonia Gandhi, there are six references attacking the “coterie” that runs the Congress party.
Terming Sonia Gandhi a “nominal figurehead” in one instance, he goes on to add that “all the important decisions were being taken by Shri Rahul Gandhi, or rather worse, his security guards and PAs”.
The Congress’s response was to say that the letter, which also listed Azad’s long association with the part in various posts, exemplified how he had himself been a member of what he termed the ”coterie” in earlier years under Sanjay Gandhi and Rajiv Gandhi.
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At another point in the letter, Azad blames Rahul Gandhi for demolishing the “consultative mechanism that existed earlier”. ”All senior and experienced leaders were sidelined and (a) new coterie of inexperienced sycophants started running the affairs of the party,’’ he adds soon after.
The reference to security guards is seen as an attack on KB Byju, who used to be in the Special Protection Group but joined Rahul Gandhi’s team when the latter became general secretary of the party. Byju doesn’t have a formal designation in the Congress party, but he has grown in stature from being in charge and managing Rahul Gandhi’s security, to also handling key assignments such as the elections in Goa earlier this year to now being the key man for Bharat Jodo Yatra.
Congress leaders said that because Byju is the person managing all of Rahul Gandhi’s travels, it puts him in a position of power because he decides who spends time with the latter or even shares the stage with him. His importance can be gauged from the fact that he was Rahul Gandhi’s personal messenger to Captain Amarinder Singh ahead of the turmoil that led to the eventual exit of the latter as Punjab CM.
HT reached out to Byju but didn’t receive a response.
The most prominent member of Team Rahul Gandhi is general secretary in charge of organisation (GSO), KC Venugopal, who Azad doesn’t name or refer to directly. Venugopal was elevated to general secretary in charge of Karnataka in 2017, the same year that Rahul Gandhi became president of the party. And in 2019, he took over his current role. Before that, he was a junior minister in the UPA government . In his AICC role, Venugopal was seen as someone who was inaccessible, resulting in heartburn among veterans such as Azad . Senior leaders, and even those who weren’t part of the G-23 of Congress leaders that wrote to Sonia Gandhi in 2020 seeking reform in how the party was run, didn’t like the fact that the Gandhis worked through him and that he controlled full access to 10, Janpath.
Venugopal said coterie is the wrong word to describe the team. He added that just as Azad was close to Rajiv Gandhi and Sanjay Gandhi, as written in his letter, the team enjoys the “trust of the leadership.” Venugopal also took issue to Azad terming the organisational elections a farce before they were held, and said that Azad was among those who derived maximum benefit from being part of the Congress. “The entire letter is designed to make BJP and Modi happy,” he added.
The other general secretaries who are part of Gandhi’s team are Randeep Surjewala and Ajay Maken.
Azad’s angst , as evident in his mention of PAs, is also directed at members of Rahul Gandhi’s personal staff. This includes Alankar Sawai, a former ICICI Bank executive who heads the research team, and for some time handled Rahul Gandhi’s twitter account ( Gandhi unfollowed many people, including several of his team members during this time).
It also includes Oxford educated Kaushal Vidyarthee, who is Rahul Gandhi’s official secretary handling his daily engagements, and Sachin Rao, who was part of the personal team but now also handles training and the publication Sandesh. The feeling among party veterans is that Gandhi relies much more on people without a political background. That’s resulted in a disconnect with the party and country, some of them claim.
“Congress has lost the will and the ability under the tutelage of the Coterie that runs the AICC to fight for what is right for India,” Azad wrote in his letter.
The biggest problem that the group of 23, which Azad led, has with Rahul Gandhi’s team is that many of them are now in positions of power, including in the Congress Working Committee. “Nominated people tend to be yes men who only agree with the leader and that’s why we keep getting defeated in elections,’’ said G23 member and former Maharashtra chief minister Prithviraj Chavan on Friday. “The consultative decision making process has stopped and that’s what needs to be fixed in the upcoming organisational elections.’’
