New Delhi | What happens when you invest your money, cadre, brains, spirit, dreams into winning an election in the World’s Largest Democracy and in the end get fooled by people of your very own team who you relied the most upon. That is what has reportedly been occurred with Congress president Rahul Gandhi in the 2019 Lok Sabha elections.
The Congress party and especially its president Rahul Gandhi has apparently been misled by key members of his team over its estimated performance in the 2019 General Election.
As per a report published in The Sunday Guardian, the team Rahul Gandhi assigned for the 2019 elections informed and made him believe that the Congress party will be winning around 164 to 184 seats. After which Rahul Gandhi called his allies such as DMK’s M.K Stalin, Samajwadi Party’s Akhilesh Yadav, National Conference Omar Abdullah, NCP’s Sharad Pawar and RJD’s Tejashwi Yadav and offered them portfolios in the upcoming cabinet.
The report further adds that based on the false estimation the Congress party planned a victory procession outside the AICC office and directed its Delhi leader to mobilise nearly 10,000 people in the procession. The Congress party also obtained two letters from a senior attorney to stake a claim for the next government.
The report holds Praveen Chakravarty, the men behind Congress’ Shakti App responsible for the misleading Rahul Gandhi with the numbers. Chakravarty who was looking after Congress Election room and data analytics meet the Congress president on May 21 and handed him a list of 184 potential winners along with respective constituencies and projected margins. Gandhi was also informed that the worst case scenario the number got drop to 164 not less than that. Chakravarty apparently charged the Congress party around 24 crores for the data his collected in the course of the elections. However, after the declaration of the results, the Congress party is unable to contact him. Several Senior Congress leaders also claim that Chakravarty has also not provided that Congress party the hard disc of the data which he collected.
Along with Praveen Chakravarty, Divya Spandana who handled Congress party’s social media and charged over 8 crores for it is also untraceable as she has deleted her Twitter and Instagram account. Including both these 4 out of 8 people of the team assisting Congress President have resigned. Many senior Congress leader further believes that Chakravarty might be a BJP agent in the Congress office.
After receiving the list the Congress president asked his office to double check the list after which Rahul ordered to make a list a 100 first time MPs and list of leaders who are likely to lose the polls. Gandhi further called M.K Stalin and offered him the post of Home Minister. He also phoned Akhilesh Yadava and asked him for his estimation of the Mahgathbandhan while conveying that the Congress party will be winning 9 seats in Uttar Pradesh which includes, Amethi, Rae Bareli, Kanpur Unnao, etc.
Rahul Gandhi’s sister and Congress General Secretary phone Congress chief ministers and asked them to send a list of potential ministers from their states. The Congress president was not only misled by his team but also by the Chief Ministers of the Congress governed state. Rajasthan Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot was confident that Congress would win 14 to 16 seats in Rajasthan out of 25. While Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Kamal Nath stated that the party would win between 11to 15 seats out of 29.
While the Congress president was misled by a large number of people within the party itself. It was only Chhattisgarh CM Bhupesh Baghel and Ahmed Patel who conveyed the ground reality to the Rahul Gandhi. Baghel said that the party would only win 3 to 4 seats in his states while Patel was sure that the party won’t open its account in the state of Gujarat.
The Congress president blind faith and over-dependent on his team which eventually prove fatal for the party was seen to such an extent that Rahul Gandhi confident of winning both Amethi and Wayanad asked Priyanka Gandhi to contest from Amethi once he vacated the seat.
The entire series of events clearly replicate that the grand old party is far away from the ground reality and overly relied on ‘Coterie Politics’.
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