R Krishna Das
With Sonia Gandhi accepting the decision of Congress Working Committee (CWC) to continue holding organisation’s top office, the power of party’s paramount decision making body had been demonstrated.
The all-powerful 22-membered CWC including President “unanimously” decided to pass a resolution requesting Sonia Gandhi “to continue to lead the Indian National Congress” until such time as circumstances will permit an AICC session to be convened. It also expressed its full solidarity for Sonia and Rahul Gandhi.
Even as party had been passing through one of the worst phases of crises to keep its own house in order, not a single CWC member “dared” to speak on the issue. A few had though stirred controversy outside the CWC by writing a letter to the Congress President.
The CWC was not a weak body until some six decades ago. For, it was CWC that had refused the name of Jawahar Lal Nahru’s daughter Indira as Congress president.
In 1959, Nehru reportedly asked U N Dhebar, the outgoing Congress President who had been in the office since 1955, to propose the name of Mrs Gandhi as his successor. Dhebar convened a special meeting of the CWC.
When he put up Indira Gandhi’s name, the CWC members were not prepared for it. They had decided to nominate S Nilalingappa. G B Pant opposed Mrs Gandhi on the ground of her “fragile” health.
Later Nehru had to intervene to say that she was quite healthy and in-fact “healthier than some of the members present”. The CWC later accepted her as Congress President. In fact, Jawahar Lal Nehru had planned to elevate Indira but never anticipated the “power” of CWC and its opposition.
In his book “Between the Lines”, renowned writer Kuldip Nayar wrote once he ventured to ask Lal Bahadur Shastri who do you think Nehru has in mind as his successor? “His daughter,” Shastri said without a second of delay as he (Nehru) had already pondered the problem.
But the plan hit the roadblock at the CWC.
The CWC was formed in December 1920 at Nagpur session of Indian National Congress headed by C Vijayaraghavachariar. In the period prior to independence in 1947, the Working Committee was the centre of power, and the Working President was frequently more active than the Congress President.
In the period after 1967, when the Congress Party split between factions loyal to Indira Gandhi and those led by the Syndicate of regional bosses including Kamaraj, the power of the CWC declined.
Indira Gandhi’s triumph in 1971 led to a re-centralisation of power away from the states and the All-India Congress Committee and caused the Working Committee in Delhi to once again be the paramount decision-making body of the party.
