Since its precipitous downfall after the 2014 Lok Sabha election, the Congress has witnessed two categories of the leaders who disagreed with the working of its president Sonia Gandhi and her two children --Rahul and Priyanka. In the first category are the G-23 leaders who tenaciously fought for their right to be heard in the party. The second category is of the party quitters.

The group of 23 dissidents known as G-23 had voiced its concern towards the drift in the Congress in August 2020. Since then they stuck to their stand while periodically reminding the leadership of their demand for structural changes in the Congress organization. Finally, they succeeded, though partially, in getting their voices heard.

The recently concluded brainstorming session in Udaipur bore testimony to their success. Barring more openly critical leaders among them against the Gandhi leadership such as Kapil Sibal, a majority of the G-23 leaders got an opportunity in the Udaipur conclave to speak out. Whether Sonia Gandhi fulfills their aspiration for accommodation in the party’s top committees remains to be seen. But this much can be said to their credit that they fought for more internal democracy within the Congress. None of them was expelled or suspended for rebelling against the top leadership.

Among the G-23, only three are political dynasts. They are Sandeep Dixit, son of Sheila Dixit; Milind Deora, son of Murli Deora and Ajay Singh, son of Arjun Singh. Fourth dynasty Jitin Prasada, son of Jitendra Prasad, had also figured in the original G-23 list. He is the only leader of the group to have quit the party. He is now a minister in the Uttar Pradesh cabinet.

The rest stayed and fought their battle for respect and dignity in the party. Their staying power signifies that the Congress with all the doom and gloom prophecies and the perception about authoritarian leadership does have scope for dissident voices, provided they are articulated within the Constitutional norms.

Now come to the second category -- the Congress quitters. None of them had flagged their disagreement in the party forums with the leadership’s style of functioning before saying goodbye to the Congress. They chose to hit out at the party only after booking their berths in other political parties, mostly the BJP. All the ills that they said the Congress is plagued with were paraded out by them after they left the party. Simultaneously, as though by some epiphany, they discovered great virtues in the BJP’s ideology and working which, they claimed, were the factors that inspired them to switch sides.

This stark hypocrisy in varying degrees could be detected in the post-resignation utterances of nearly all the 65-odd prominent leaders who left the Congress since 2014.

Take, for instance, the latest case of Hardik Patel. The young Gujarati leader of a popular caste-based movement for reservation in 2015 had joined the Congress in 2017. Within two years he was made Gujarat Congress working president at the age when he was not eligible for even contesting election. All through his brief stint in the party, he vigorously articulated the Congress’s secularism. He appeared quite gung ho about the party’s potential to save the country from the divisive politics of the BJP. He also sounded sanguine about the Congress’s commitment to the poor in their fight for justice against the BJP –supported rich.

A month ago, his tone and stance changed. While still in the Congress, Hardik’s heart started throbbing for the BJP. It was no coincidence that this happened after the Gujarat government withdrew a case of sedition against him. The Congress leadership, particularly Rahul Gandhi, must have already sensed that the working president is unstoppable. That was the reason why the party ignored his expression of growing annoyance in the media. No sooner had Hardik left the party, he blasted the Congress for “preferring chicken sandwiches to the woes of Gujarat”. He suddenly ‘rediscovered’ love for BJPs Hindutva and all the Modi government’s decisions inspired by this ideology.

Another latest case is Sunil Jakhar’s resignation from the Congress. He was served show cause notice for indiscipline. He had it coming to him after he publicly fulminated against the party in the aftermath of its defeat in the Punjab assembly election. Rather than waiting for the anger of the high command to cool-off , he severed “ 50 years long ties” with the party that had given him and his father late Dr Balram Jakhar enough to be eternally grateful about.

It is a déjà vu. Most of the former Congress dynasts from Rita Bahuguna to Jyotiraditya Scindia to Jitin Prasad to Sunil Jakhar read out pretty much the same script about how the Congress is a sinking ship and BJP is the robust future. Their analysis may not be off-the mark. But that doesn’t wash off the sin of rank opportunism. While the list of those who quit the Congress since its downfall began is pretty long, some prominent names dominated media debates when they joined the BJP.

Except a few like Hemant Biswa Sharma, the Assam Chief Minister, a majority of prominent ex-Congress leaders in the BJP are political dynasts. Scindia, Jitin Prasad, RPN Singh, Rita Bahuguna, Vishwajit Rane and Sunil Jakhar were the pampered children in the Congress by virtue of being their fathers’ sons or daughters. They enjoyed the party with a hubristic sense of entitlement. When in power, the Congress gratified the entitlement.

When out of power, it could not. Therein lay the motivation of the political dynasts leaving the Congress in a drove. It had little to do with ideology or leadership. The quitters were thoroughly enjoying their pound of flesh in the Congress regime. Addicted to power, they gravitated to the BJP, the new power centre. How could the Congress have stopped them?