Three months ago, Rahul Gandhi’s “high command mindset” had come in for sharp criticism from Assam Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma who chided him for once feeding his dog in the presence of leaders from the state and then offering them “the same biscuits” — a callback to the incident that Sarma had described as being the impetus for his resignation from the party. The same “mindset” is the target of some rather thinly-veiled criticism in the Congress’s latest resignation saga: Hardik Patel, who quit the party today, has blamed his exit on the leadership’s “hatred” of India, Gujarat and Gujaratis and the youth of the nation, even as it remains preoccupied with “chicken sandwiches”.
In his trilingual resignation letter, posted on Twitter, Patel is scathing about what he sees as the many failures of the Congress. Much of the letter bemoans the various ways in which he says the party has “insulted” Gujaratis (including, predictably, Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel),the alleged venality of the Gujarat Congress and the national leadership’s lack of a proactive opposition agenda. Running through these complaints, however, is a charge that has long bedevilled the Congress — that the leadership’s elitism and absorption in “trivial things” (pet dogs, foreign vacations, parties and, now, chicken sandwiches) have led it to lose touch with the masses.
