NEW DELHI: A tweet by top Congress leader Ahmed Patel’s son Faisal Patel(41) on Tuesday indicating that he may be on his way out after being kept waiting by the Gandhis for so many months since after his father, a close aide and confidante of Sonia Gandhi, died in 2000.”Tired of waiting around. No encouragement from the top brass. Keeping my options open,” he tweeted.
The Congress leadership completely reshaped the party in Gujarat that goes to polls later this year, with the party all confident to unseat the BJP in power, but Faisal found no place.
Faisal’s recent meeting with Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) chief Arvind Kejriwal intensified speculation as AAP is trying to make inroads in Gujarat.
Ahmed Patel, a Rajya Sabha member from Gujarat, was one of the Congress trouble-shooters. His father was a Congress MP and he could get into the Rajiv Gandhi’s team because of his father’s popularity. Faisal, however, does not have the kind of talent Ahmed Patel displayed and so the party leadership has shown no interest to accommodate him in any position in the party.
Faisal’s tweet, however, reflects the general disgruntlement and drift in the party, which has worsened over the serial election defeats. Several leaders, including Jyotiraditya Scindia, Jitin Prasada, Ashwani Kumar and RPN Singh have quit the party in the last two years.
Though Faisal’s tweet clearly reflects his frustration of not finding a way out for fulfilment of his political ambition, yet he cannot be accused of betraying a party to which his father belonged to because today’s politics is driven by power rather naked power and youth has no patience to wait for the fruits of power.
Senior Congress leaders from Gujarat say AAP will not gain much even if Faisal joins it since he never worked to develop contacts by taking advantage of Ahmed Patel’s political activities.
While experienced leaders in the party are not willing to make way for youth , young leaders too don’t have either patience or dedication to wait for rewards.
Energy and experience are two important ingredients of a functioning and successful organization and it is more than necessary for a political party too. A right balance between the two makes any organization or a party successful. In the Congress, experienced leaders have failed to channelize the energy of the youth for the growth of the party thus energy of young leaders remains untapped and goes waste.
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