Congress leader Rahul Gandhi is rarely heard using aggressive language against anyone or threatening anyone with jail. However, on Wednesday, Rahul made an exception during a public speech in Assam, threatening Assam Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma that he will be sent to jail after the elections, due next year, in the eastern state of the country.
Sarma is one of the several former Congress leaders who deserted the party and joined the BJP. Sarma has had a long association with the Congress. He became an MLA at the young age of 32 on Congress party ticket. He became a cabinet minister in the Congress governments in Assam in his thirties. However, as he was enterprising, he was ambitious as well and wanted to go further, but stuck the traditional Congress “family wall”.
Congress veteran Tarun Gogoi was quite well-entrenched in Assam. As in states like Rajasthan, Chhattisgarh, Haryana and Madhya Pradesh, where leaders like Ashok Gehlot, Bhupesh Baghel, Bhupinder Singh Hooda and Kamal Nath blocked the path of the next generation. Gogoi did the same with Sarma.
When in 2015, ahead of the 2016 Assembly elections, Sarma desperately tried to meet Rahul Gandhi, who was the party president that time, he did not get an audience. And eventually when he managed to get time for a meeting with Gandhi, he felt ignored. It is about this meeting he famously said that Gandhi was more focused on his dog than on him and served it biscuits from the same plate in which guests were served.
Within a few months, Sarma joined the Bharatiya Janata Party in early 2016, just ahead of the assembly elections. BJP stormed to power, but Sarma did not become the chief minister. He was appointed a minister in the Sarbanand Sonwal government. Sonwal was a BJP veteran and he was preferred over the newcomer Sarma.
Sarma waited for his turn. The BJP returned to power in 2021. This time the party gave Sarma his due and he was appointed the chief minister. Since then, Sarma has adopted a very aggressive stance towards the Congress, more specifically towards Rahul Gandhi. The political rivalry has turned personal.
When Gandhi addressed a largely attended public rally in Chaygaon, Assam, on Wednesday, he minced no words in personally attacking Sarma, accusing him and his family of large-scale corruption. Gandhi went to the extent that Sarma will go to jail after the 2026 Assembly elections, adding, nobody, not even Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Union Home Minister Amit Shah, could save him from going to jail. Sarma responded cryptically in return, wishing Gandhi, “good luck”.
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Sarma and Gandhi are almost contemporaries in politics and age. In the hindsight, the Congress may have realised that it was not a good idea to lose a leader like Sarma. He may have been ambitious, but he is quite enterprising. After all, it demands a question that if Sarma could flourish in the BJP, why not in the Congress?
Sarma is only one of the many examples of how able, ambitious and enterprising leaders are feeling “suffocated” in the Congress and trying to find a way out. There are many others like Mamata Bannerjee in West Bengal, Jaggan Reddy in Andhra Pradesh and Sharad Pawar in Maharashtra, who’s leaving the Congress proved almost fatal for the party.
Had Mamata been allowed to grow in the Congress and made the West Bengal Congress president in the late 1990s, the state would still be with the Congress. Similarly, the party lost Jaggan Reddy, for no reason when his father YSR Reddy had been a staunch supporter of the Congress, particularly the Gandhi family. In fact, the Congress-led UPA’s surprise victory in 2004 was majorly because of his performance in the then united Andhra Pradesh. Sharad Pawar’s story is well known.
This is how the Congress lost its potential bastions by losing promising leaders from different states. Had there been a strong and a charismatic leader at the centre, the party might have managed to absorb the shock. But that is not the case. Gandhi has yet to prove his mettle. He has led the party to three consecutive defeats in the General Elections of 2014, 2019 and 2024. Although in 2024, it was Mallikarjun Kharge who was and still is the “official” president of the party, it is no secret as to who runs the show in the Congress.
Gandhi may have vented his anger by threatening to put Sarma behind the bars. For this he may have personal reasons, as the Assam Chief Minister has at times gone out of way to criticise Gandhi, even resorting to personal attacks. But that is not going to solve Gandhi’s or the Congress’ problems. As long as the able, ambitious and enterprising leaders in the Congress are not allowed to grow, there will be many more Sarmas in the times to come.
Compare the state of affairs of the Congress with the BJP. Not only has been the party welcoming the outsiders and accommodating them, but also addressing their ambitions and aspirations. And at the same time, the party has also been preparing itself and its powerful leaders to make way for the younger generation. The political parties cannot and should not be made private proprietorships of anyone, no matter how strong, powerful and influential that leader may be.
Gandhi’s anger against Sarma is understandable. But, Sarma, really can’t be blamed for that. Problem does not lie with Sarma or Scindia, but somewhere else, deep inside within the Congress.
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