The missing roll call

Congress should not undermine presidential polls

Transparency, or the lack of it, has been at the centre of the Congress party’s crisis since 2014. That opaque, non-consultative, and sometimes wholly inexplicable process has caused the party serious damage, not just electorally but also organisationally. Senior stalwarts have either quit the party, such as Jyotiraditya Scindia, Amarinder Singh, and, most recently, Ghulam Nabi Azad, or formed a coterie of dissidents — the G23 — that expresses its discontent through social-media posts and press interviews. But no lessons seem to have been learnt by the party high command. The first election for the president’s post in more than