Downward spiral of Congress: Leadership vacuum

After the whipping it received in the recently held Lok Sabha elections, nothing  seems to be going right for the Congress. After Rahul Gandhi resigned as the president of the All India Congress Committee, citing moral responsibility for the drubbing the party received at the Lok Sabha hustings, the grand old party of the country is still struggling to find the man to take on the baton from the Gandhi scion. No easy answer as to why the oldest political party is not in a position to find a man to fill in the shoes of the young Gandhi scion, but to many it may be taken to mean that no one is ready to get down to the business of cleaning the mess and then later hand back the baton to “the  family.” Not that “the family” would lay claim but such is the culture of the Congress that there are bound to be voices  from amongst the ‘loyalists’ that the Gandhis come back at the top of the grand old party. With no one apparently coming forward to don the responsibility, the Congress looks a confused political party, not knowing which way to go, with the old guards preferring that a Gandhi continue to lead the party while the younger lot support the stand of Rahul Gandhi in holding the old guards responsible for the poll debacle.  Whatever way one looks at it, it does not say anything good about the oldest political party in the country and this is something which is surely going to work to the advantage of the BJP. Other than groping in the dark on who should step in and take the place vacated by Rahul Gandhi, the Congress seems to be slipping more with as many as 10 of the 15 Congress MLAs in Goa switching loyalty to the BJP. It is the same in Karnataka too with  nine of the 14 Cong-JD (S) MLAs submitting their resignation to the Speaker of the Karnataka Assembly.
Manipur has not yet gone the way of Goa or Karnataka but it is nonetheless significant to note that of the 28 Congress MLAs elected in the Assembly elections of 2017, eight are presently supping with the BJP led coalition Government. Not clear how the rogue Congress MLAs would fare if they are disqualified and have to again face an election, for it is not for nothing that it is widely believed that elected members behave the way they do as per the disposition of the people who elected them in the first place. In other words in as much as the elected members may act without a tinge of conscience, the same may be said of the people who elected them in the first place. This is where the responsibilities of the voters cannot be dismissed that easily. Congress still unable to find a man to become the president of the AICC, political circus underway at Goa and Karnataka  and eight of the 28 elected Congress MLAs in Manipur supping with the BJP led Government and nothing looks right for the grand old party. It is confused, it is rudderless and this does not sound good for the country for what is needed is a strong Opposition and the Congress is best placed to be that Opposition. Certainly this is not what is expected of the party of Gandhi, Tilak, Sardar Patel and other leaders.