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COMMENT
CONGRESS SHOULD
GO IN FOR A REAMP
MS. KRISSHNA ARJUN (PUBLISHER AND
MANAGER EDITOR)
 MAHARASHTRA
CONGRESS president Prabha Rau and in-charge of Maharashtra Margaret
Alva and Pune strongman Suresh Kalmadi recently opined that Congress
should go alone in the forthcoming Lok Sabha and assembly elections in
the State. They pointed out that alliance with Maratha strongman
Sharad Pawar’s Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) spoilt the spirit of
the grassroot Congressmen in the State. We don’t think that much
research is required to express such an opinion for the senior
leaders.
Ever since, Pawar
parted away from Congress to form his own party NCP, pointing out that
he could not accept the leadership of Sonia Gandhi, whom he along with
his colleagues termed as “foreigner”, is trying to woo defectors from
Congress to strengthen their party. However, for reasons better known
to Pawar and company, they compromised sharing power at Centre and in
Maharashtra. In the meanwhile, it may be noted that in Maharashtra,
Pawar’s party always showed a soft corner towards the regional party
Shiv Sena, whenever opportunity came in. Shiv Sena and NCP shared
power in many municipalities in the State only to keep away Congress
party coming into power.
Alva, who could not do
much in her home turf Karnataka, during the recently concluded
assembly elections, may not be able to do much in the State, opined
senior MPCC leaders and grassroot Congress workers.
In Maharashtra,
grass-root Congress workers are unhappy with the style of functioning
of the Chief Minister Vilasrao Deshmukh. “The government has always
favoured the rich. The most benefited during the government is the
builders’ lobby,” said a senior Congress leader.
The world’s largest
Democratic Party has faced several electoral debacles. The failure to
perform well during these elections has sent a clear and unambiguous
message to Congress chief Sonia Gandhi: that there is no shortcut to
putting the house in order. With the Lok Sabha elections just a year
away and Assembly elections in five states lined up in the next few
months, time is of the essence for the Congress.
This is the right time
for Rahul and Sonia Gandhi who lead the party for a rethinking. The
leadership should plan decisions on a war footing and has to wake up
to reality. In Gujarat, Narendra Modi-led BJP’s victory was a setback
for the Congress while the Karnataka result gave the saffron forces a
major boost. BJP leadership is talking of plans to ensure the saffron
brigade emerges a clear winner in the next Lok Sabha. The road to the
battle passes through treacherous terrain. Assembly elections in five
states — Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, Chhattisgarh, Delhi and Mizoram —
expected in November this year, will indicate to the Congress the
shape of things to come.
The fuel hike effected
by the Congress-led UPA government, howsoever inevitable it might be,
has caused concern among party faithfuls and has spread anxiety in the
ruling alliance. A reshuffle of the AICC or PCCs, or even the Union
Cabinet, is unlikely to generate results because time is running out.
“Three issues are causing the party political pain — the nuclear deal
with the United States, price rise and the women’s reservation bill.
While the nuclear deal has made the Left parties, seen as ideological
supporters of the Congress, passive, the hurry in introducing the
women’s reservation bill antagonised allies like the RJD and others.
On the other hand, inflation and price rise has taken the common man
further from the Congress.
In this situation, the
Congress has no option but to go ahead with the coalition. Its
organisational structure has been weak in major states like Uttar
Pradesh, Bihar, Maharashtra, West Bengal and Tamil Nadu, which elect
249 of the total 545 Lok Sabha members. Geographically, the party has
been lacking heavyweights in the Hindi heartland.
The party was
optimistic about attracting 25 crore youth across the country by
projecting Rahul Gandhi. However, Rahul’s magic did not work in Uttar
Pradesh, Gujarat and Karnataka. If caste equations paid off for Kumari
Mayawati in Uttar Pradesh, it was Narendra Modi who attracted more
youth than anyone else.
The AICC’s
introspection committee, constituted by Sonia Gandhi after the 1999
Lok Sabha polls, found that “the image of the party in the public
perception changed radically to that of a party of ‘power seekers and
destablisers’”. But this has not changed even after nine years. The
committee was headed by A K Antony and had listed organisational
weaknesses that are still relevant. “The report of the committee is
relevant even after nine years. Some of its recommendations related to
the organisation were either ignored or not implemented in letter and
spirit by the leadership. And this could be the reasons behind the
Congress’ successive defeats in about a dozen State Assemblies despite
being in power at the Centre” opined a senior AICC office bearer.
Now, Soniaji has once again asked the Antony Committee to give
“suggestions” as to how to re-energise the party machinery before the
big battle. This is the Antony II committee, which is expected to give
its report during the month, it is learnt from sources.
It may be recalled
that the Antony I committee had critically observed the performance of
the party’s frontal wings. “The Youth Congress and the NSUI barely
exist at the constituency level, the Mahila Congress is no more active
nor present in the field. The party should revamp and reorient the
Seva Dal. It should be our cadre-based vanguard for combating the
forces of communalism and reaction,” it said.But the leadership
appears to
be in no mood to
assess their performance. Had the frontal organisations been active,
the outcome of the polls in Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, West Bengal,
Karnataka, Gujarat, Punjab, Uttarakhand and Himachal Pradesh would
have been different. The name of Seva Dal was not even heard when
Gujarat was burning in communal riots after Godhra. “Seva Dal has
become a group of people who just ‘salute’ the leaders,” opined a
senior leader.
The basic
recommendation of the Antony committee was that "excessive
centralisation gives way to a larger measure of federalisation in the
organisation of work and the decision-making process within the
party".
It had given 20
suggestions. One of them was "free and fair elections at higher
echelons of the party hierarchy through secret balloting". But the
central election committee has remained passive, at least since the
last four years.
It wanted to scrap the
practice of passing "one-line" resolutions for candidate selection
from the Pradesh Election Committee to the Congress president, which
it viewed "is responsible for many anomalies and errors in candidate
selection". But this has continued even after the report.
The announcement of
candidates for the Assembly elections “at least one month in advance”
and for the parliamentary constituencies “six months in advance” was
the recommendation of the committee in States where the Congress has
been repeatedly defeated. This was accepted by the CWC but the party
high command did not implement it in Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, West Bengal
and Tamil Nadu.
It had advised the
leadership to de-link entry or re-entry from ticket entitlement while
explaining that entry or re-entry of prodigal sons and daughters
causes considerable heartburn at the constituency level.
“In many cases, the
denial of tickets to loyalists in favour of kin and kith of party
leaders was not justified by the outcome and resulted only in the
alienation of workers and leaders of long standing,” the report said.
It also recommended a limited number of office-bearers, setting up a
strong research and reference department and building up “our own
Dalit leadership”.
It wanted to scrap the
practice of passing “one-line” resolutions for candidate selection
from the Pradesh Election Committee to the Congress president, which
it viewed “is responsible for many anomalies and errors in candidate
selection”. But this has continued even after the report. Many of the
party members are unhappy, because even after putting in so many years
for the party, newcomers (read as relatives of leaders) are getting
recommended for party posts and even for electoral candidature.
Now, the party
leadership has to change the style of functioning and gather views of
the loyal Congress workers’ instead of listening to ‘power brokers’ to
prove its strength at ground level.
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