STRONG rumours are doing the rounds all over the country that Congress leader Mr. Rahul Gandhi’s conviction in a defamation case and his subsequent disqualification from the Lok Sabha membership are parts of a deep-rooted conspiracy against him within the Congress party -- so that his leadership reign ends and possibly new leadership emerges. Though there is no substantiation of this sly thought doing the rounds, many political observers are open to accepting this as a possible truth. They are almost willing to accept that Mr. Rahul Gandhi has become a victim of some ugly design to throw him out from leadership position and reduce his importance beyond repair.

Let alone the drama in such rumours and ideas, there are sound reasons to suspect that Mr. Rahul Gandhi was driven to a point of no-return, by way of which he refused to apologise in the Surat court that heard the defamation case. Had he just said in all politeness that he did not have any ill-intentions while making the controversial statement against the Modi community, the honourable court would have allowed him to go home without blemish. Instead, Mr. Gandhi refused to apologise -- and got the flak. And to make things all the more suspicious, the Congress party did not approach the Supreme Court, as it had done recently in the case against spokesperson Mr. Pawan Khera, within just an hour. Such an alertness could have been displayed in Mr. Rahul Gandhi’s case as well. But that did not happen -- which has led to a strong suspicion that the Congress stalwarts chose to remain silent, thereby allowing the system to proceed against Mr. Rahul Gandhi. Their inaction has given rise to various rumours -- and even political loose talks.

The biggest question that is being asked again and again in the political circles plus media is whether Mr. Rahul Gandhi failed to assess the importance of the issue at hand and the damage its loose handling could cause, or he was carefully led into a trap from which it was difficult for him to emerge. Given his own flaws and foibles, Mr. Gandhi could have walked on any of the two paths!

It is possible from every which the angle that somebody pumped up Mr. Rahul Gandhi’s false sense of dignity and pushed him into comparison of his family name Gandhi with the name of Savarkar. To say that he was not a Savarkar to apologise because his family name was Gandhi, was actually being foolish. For, this same man has apologised on two three occasions in the recent years. By so doing, he escaped arrest. He could have taken the same approach here as well, and save himself the huge embarrassment. If Mr. Rahul Gandhi had apologised in most sincere tone, the honourable court would have let him go possibly with a warning not to indulge in such overtures again. But the Congress leader was maybe pushed into an obstinate stance by some of his hangers-on (who were in league with some sly anti-Rahul activity) within the party. Hence the suspicion of an anti-Rahul conspiracy.

There are political observers who insist that there is a rift between Mr. Rahul Gandhi and Mrs. Priyanka Gandhi-Vadra. This segment of observers suspects that it could be Mrs. Priyanka Gandhi-Vadra who plotted the suspected conspiracy against her brother -- with an ultimate wish to take over the party leadership. This segment does not think that it is too far-fetched an idea to be true. No matter the factual details that we may never come to know fully and truthfully, the very development is totally strange and defies logic. Let alone that, it is obvious that the Congress party is slowly but invariably leading to its own doom in the next some years.