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At a time, when the Congress is going through one of its worst ever crises of credibility and shrinkage of support base, Sonia Gandhi has added yet another leaf of personal glory – 19th consecutive year of party presidency, a distinction that no leader had since the time this grand old party was found in 1985.

Ideally, the Congress cadres should have found a reason to celebrate and raise slogans hailing Sonia at the gates of her residence at 10 Janpath. But that has not happened so far perhaps because they were all reserving it for the crown prince and vice-president Rahul Gandhi’s elevation to the post of party president. The Congress, therefore, officially calls it a "technical requirement", which essentially means that mother Sonia has to keep the reigns in control till such time when son Rahul readies himself. In keeping with these developments,the schedule for the organisational elections have been postponed for another year.

Though it was known for some time now that Rahul, despite all the ground work made by a dominant section of the party, was still not willing to take charge, the deliberations of CWC meeting (albeit without saying a word about him) has made it official. The hopeful cadre of the Congress party were disappointed. “While mother is scripting fresh chapters in Congress’ history, son is still busy exploring geography”.

The Congress leaders said that this was not the best time for Rahul Gandhi to take over and he should ideally be promoted next year after conclusion of assembly elections in Assam, Tamil Nadu, West Bengal, Kerala and Puducherry. It is anybody’s guess what could be Congress’s performance in elections scheduled for this year, as in Bihar, where he has been the driving force behind an alliance with CM Nitish Kumar. But if Rahul takes over as Congress president in 2016 then the two big elections which will follow in 2017 will be UP (in early part of the year) and Gujarat (towards closure of the year). Going by the Congress’ present day strength, 2017 may not begin or end on a very positive note for Rahul.

The Congress leadership for sure knows who is best suited as the party president. The problem arises when the Congress Working Committee, the party’s highest decision making body, collectively endorses disruptionist and agitationist parliamentary politics of Rahul Gandhi. If it’s part of the strategy to keep morale of party workers up then its fine but it does not go down well when it comes to larger public consumption.

Going by the on-record and off-record briefing made by the Congress after CWC meeting, it was not clear whether the Congress will allow winter session of Parliament to function smoothly. Though the outcome of Bihar elections would impact the national politics and Congress’ thought process in particular, but prospects of a washed out winter session, is simply frightening. The party also indicated that it has put spanners in Modi government’s plan to hold special or an extended monsoon to pass biggest single tax reform GST bill.