Party Not Willing To Rectify Mistakes, Listen To Others: Congress Leader Kapil Sibal

In a recent interview to The Indian Express, senior Congress leader Kapil Sibal acknowledged the sorry state of affairs in the party after Congress' debacle in the Bihar election. He opined that the "people of India don't consider the Congress to be an effective alternative anymore". He felt the need for the party to either "introspect" or "listen to others."

"This is one conclusion. After all, the alternative in Bihar was the RJD. We lost all the by-elections in Gujarat. Even in the Lok Sabha elections we had not won a single seat there. In some of the constituencies in Uttar Pradesh, the Congress candidates in the by-elections notched up less than 2% of the votes cast. Three of our candidates in Gujarat lost their deposits. So the writing is on the wall," he said.

On being asked why there has been a reluctance to address the poor performance of the Congress party, Sibal said that the party is not willing to rectify its mistakes.

"There is reluctance because the CWC is a nominated body. Democratic processes must be adopted and embraced even in the constitution of the CWC, which is reflected in the provisions of the congress' constitution itself. You don't expect nominated members to start questioning and raise their concerns about the reasons for the constant decline of the Congress in elections after elections," Sibal said.

"If for six years, the Congress has not introspected what hope do we have for introspection now? We know what is wrong with Congress. The party itself knows the answers. But they are not willing to recognise those answers. If they do not recognise those answers, then the graph will continue to decline," he added.

He along with 22 other senior leaders had written to the Congress president giving a raft of suggestions, but it turned futile as the leadership did not respond.

"Since there has been no dialogue and there seems to be no effort for dialogue by the leadership, and since there is no forum to express my views, I am constrained to express them publicly. I am a Congressman and will remain one and hope and pray that the Congress provides the alternative to a power structure which has subverted all the values that the nation stands for," he said.

Sibal said that in the absence of conversation, the party cannot succeed in taking forward the agendas. "All of us are ideologically committed to the Congress. We are as good Congressmen as any of the others. Our credentials as Congressmen cannot be doubted. What we are saying is that every organisation needs a conversation. That means listening to others. In the absence of seriously recognizing what the problem is, we will not be able to come up with any solution."

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