The discomfort was palpable. The smooth, perhaps spectacular, manner in which Ram Nath Kovind assumed office as President of India went down so well with the general public that a section of the Congress party appeared desperate to “darken” the picture.

Sadly for itself, it could come up with nothing better than trying to fault Kovind’s first speech for not mentioning Nehru ~ and for good measure the Congress leaders in the Rajya Sabha, Ghulam Nabi Azad and the ever-unimpressive Anand Sharma, added that it had been virtually sacrilegious for Deen Dayal Upadhyay and Mahatma Gandhi to be mentioned in the same breath.

The fuss they kicked up was so obviously premeditated and choreographed that it hardly “registered” across the Opposition benches in the Elders, and the two Congress leaders found themselves isolated; more agitation was triggered by a heat-of-the-moment observation from Arun Jaitley that the Opposition raised issues with an eye on TV cameras.

Though proceedings in the Elders were disrupted for a while, it eventually boiled down to “much ado about nothing”. There was a pathetic tone to the whining, which suggested that Azad and Sharma had nothing more weighty over which to criticise the President. The non-seriousness of the protest was underscored by the matter being ignored by Congress members in the Lok Sabha.

Had the party taken genuine exception to the President’s speech it would have found more forceful expression than what was on offer in the Rajya Sabha. Maybe the leader and deputy leader of the party were keen on “impressing” 10 Janpath, they did not ignite much fire anywhere else.

Kovind’s presidency is in its infancy, there are distinct possibilities of him having to take controversial action (Indira Gandhi had stripped Rashtrapati Bhawan of much of its independent authority) and the Congress could have waited for issues more substantial than the ones over which they tried to stir up a storm in Parliament.

That furnishes further confirmation of how leaders of the party have not reconciled themselves to the diminished role they now play in national affairs. For the Congress party Nehru does command iconic status, but it would be naïve not to accept that there is a school of thought which has a different evaluation ~ Kovind does not have the political orientation of those who lauded the “Indira is India” line, and is certainly not required to hail Nehru in the same fashion as the Congress. Did any Congress leader, Nehru apart, have the grace to publicly acknowledge the leadership of members of other parties?

The image of Nehru is actually tarnished by what transpired in the Elders, sycophants like Azad and Sharma did his memory distinct disservice.

As for the Congress itself ~ it suffered a body-blow in Patna the same evening.