By Tirthankar Mitra
Dissenting voices in Congress leadership which had once sought a change at top echelons of the party have now been raised seeking a nationwide alliance with regional parties based on ground realities for 2024 Lok Sabha polls. The Congress leadership descending from its high horse is the first precondition to achieve this.
The Grand Old Party and those likely to be on board with in this yet to be cobbled together alliance will have to keep in mind respective strengths and weaknesses before it hits the ground running for the Lok Sabha polls next year. Those seeking a broad-based alliance for next year’s election seek to make the leadership come down to the brass tacks.
Voicing this line of thinking, Shashi Tharoor and Manish Tiwari, not known to always tow the official line of the party, have been vocal that in the states where the Congress lacks in organisational strength it should make way for the regional party that has a better chance against BJP nominees in next year’s election. This is necessary to prevent fragmentation of anti-BJP votes, it has been stated.
The joint refrain of Tharoor Tiwari is echoing what Congress Rajya Sabha MP, Abhishek Manu Singhvi has thought aloud earlier. But Singhvi seems to have cried in the wilderness at that time.
Perhaps the lawyer politician’s words were taken with a pinch of salt by the Congress leadership as he has been elected to the Rajya Sabha from West Bengal with support of Trinamool Congress. Incidentally, Congress leadership perceived storm signals when Trinamool Congress chief Mamata Banerjee first advocated this gameplan against BJP last year.
The Congress leadership seemed to have been thinking that Banerjee had a hidden agenda of hijacking the leadership of the yet to be formed Opposition alliance from the Congress. But as things stand now, the Congress can no longer ride roughshod over the other Opposition parties.
Singhvi was the lone voice in the Congress to point out that BJP gets only 40 per cent of the total votes. It is fragmentation of the Opposition vote share that lets the saffron party go first past the post.
Tharoor has pointed out that Congress is in a “straight fight” with BJP in about 200 constituencies in Lok Sabha. There are 543 seats in the Parliament and the other Opposition leaders will have to be persuaded to give the saffron outfit nominees a run for their money in the rest of the seats in the constituencies where the non-BJP outfits have enough organisational muscle.
Of course, areas of influence will have to be worked out without a thought of breaking egg shell egos. This thought assumes significance as it has been floated amidst talks with M K Stalin and Nitish Kumar on Opposition unity.
Now that Congress has almost its back to the wall in next year’s election its leadership have decided to shelve egos having come to a belated understanding that the party can no longer bask in its old glory. A desire to settle scores with Congress over once hurt pride will have to be set aside by outfits like Trinamool Congress as taking the poll machinery of BJP head on is the need of the hour.
Not intruding into areas of influence of respective political outfits will remain the cornerstone of the prospective alliance opposing the saffron camp in 2024 Lok Sabha polls. The belated thinking in a section of senior Congress leadership circles is sought to be spread by those who had once opposed dynastic rule in Congress.
Starved of electoral success for a long time excepting the recent one in Himachal Pradesh recently, Congress national leadership is likely to walk this talk Possibility of this alliance formula being taken up in the coming state Assembly elections cannot be ruled out.
In that case, fighting the coming elections will be a litmus test of working out this formula of Congress not interloping into the allies’ area of influence by fielding dummy candidates. This would boil down to forsaking its once much practiced game plan of infiltrating into the backyard of another political outfit.
The temptation to do so would be great. But not yielding to it will cut down infighting and in the long run help in putting up a broad-based anti BJP platform.
To achieve this end, the Tharoor-Tiwari duo feels that seat adjustment should be worked out at the state level. It would go a long way in avoiding ideological differences and keeping fragile egos of national level leaders intact as the state level leaders are better informed of ground realities in their areas.
The formula is easier said than put into practice. The Congress leadership will have to do some out of the box thinking in these cases to achieve its ends.
The leeway national Congress chief Mallikarjun Kharge will be permitted by former party chiefs, Sonia and Rahul Gandhi will be the deciding factor in these cases. Such room for give and take will also extend to state level leaders who will be delegated the responsibility to negotiate at the local level.
Removal of BJP-led NDA government at the Centre should be the sole common minimum programme at the moment, it is felt. An electoral arrangement is in place between the Congress and other regional political outfits in Bihar, Jharkhand, Maharashtra and Tamil Nadu.
Such arrangement needs to be reached in Odisha, Uttar Pradesh, Telangana and Andhra Pradesh where Congress has ceased to call the shots for years. It remains to be seen as a test of party chief Kharge’s negotiation skills.
Again the extent of maneurverality Kharge will be permitted by the Gandhis is what the Congress leaders eager for a countrywide Opposition alliance has kept unsaid. The Congress hold on governance and being the principal Opposition outfit often came unstuck owing to egos and indecision of it’s top leadership whose diktat can never be the last word to Opposition chieftains like Mamata Banerjee in West Bengal or Naveen Patnaik in Odisha.
Talks of a nationwide Opposition platform against BJP in next year’s Lok Sabha elections is still on the drawing board. To give it shape and get it going, the powers that be in the Congress will have to be short on their ego and long on pragmatism. (IPA Service)
