Congress fault lines out in the open as blame game within party intensifies

The blame game in the Congress intensified on Friday as party leader Manish Tewari made a sensational charge that internal sabotage from within the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) was responsible for the defeat of the Congress in the 2014 that brought the National Democratic Alliance to power.

The MP from the Anandpur Sahib constituency said the 2019 defeat must also be analysed, especially as no charge of corruption has been proved in a court of law six years on. He referred to the 2G spectrum scam and hinted at a larger conspiracy to destabilise the UPA. “What would be interesting to find out someday is not that the report was fake but who set him to it,” he tweeted, referring to Comptroller and Auditor General Vinod Rai, whose audit report suggesting the government had lost Rs 1.76 trillion by faulty allocation of 2G spectrum was a major reason for the BJP to spin out a narrative of corruption against the Congress that caused the BJP’s landslide victory in 2014.

Tewari’s comments come against the background of a meeting of Rajya Sabha MPs from the Congress called by interim Congress President Sonia Gandhi on Wednesday. At this meeting, former finance minister P Chidam­baram and former telecom minister Kapil Sibal said the leadership was muddled and fuzzy and ne­eded to be more focused to reg­ain political ground.  What followed was a fierce debate betw­een the old guard and acolytes of Rahul Gandhi, who charged that the seniors were simply not doing enough to attack the government.