It seems as if the Congress Party has a death wish. Even if people may want to vote for it, it behaves in a self-destructive manner, making it harder each passing day for the people to support it. No wonder the party is lurching from crisis to crisis.
Take the biennial election to the Rajya Sabha last week. The Congress suffered complete humiliation in Himachal Pradesh when six of its MLAs voted against the party whip, leading to the defeat of party candidate, Abhishek Manu Singhvi. In Uttar Pradesh, its main ally Samajwadi Party and only hope of the Congress winning a Lok Sabha seat or two, suffered a severe jolt when some half-a-dozen party MLAs voted against the party candidate, giving the BJP an extra seat.
The defeat in Himachal Pradesh would hurt more because it was easily preventable. But such is the disarray in the party affairs, that even when a senior Himachal Pradesh leader gave a prior warning, the party high command did nothing to smooth things over. For Anand Sharma, a senior party leader who till recently was a member of the Rajya Sabha and was keen on yet another term, protested the nomination of an outsider from Himachal Pradesh. Sharma said that never before had Himachal Pradesh Congress been forced to elect an outsider from the State. He went on to speak of a disquiet in the party MLAs against the nomination of Singhvi.
It was a public secret in Shimla that Chief Minister Sukhvinder Singh Sukhu faced dissidence in the Congress Legislature Party. Fourteen months ago, when he was nominated by the party high command to the chief ministerial post, a section of the MLAs registered its protest. For, they would have liked either Pratibha Singh, Pradesh Congress head and the widow of the former six-time chief minister Virbhadra Singh, or her son, Vikramaditya Singh, to be made chief minister. They were spurned by the high command in favour of Sukhu.
Consequently, Sukhu had to contend with dissidence in the CLP from the moment he took oath as CM. And the dissidents struck when they perceived their chance to register protest. Six party MLAs defied the party whip and voted against Singhvi. The votes for Harsh Mahajan, a former Congressman who had joined the BJP recently, and Singhvi, were 34 each. The winner was decided by the draw of names. In the peculiar method prescribed by the Election Commission, whoever drew the name from the box lost the poll while the one whose chit still remained in the box emerged victorious. Singhvi picked the chit bearing his name and lost the poll.
In the 68-member HP Assembly, the ruling party had 40 members, the Opposition BJP 25 while three were Independents. After six Congress members defied the party whip and voted for the BJP candidate along with the three Independents, the votes for each candidate came to 34.
Now the Sukhu government was tottering on the brink. A day after the election, when the Assembly met, 15 BJP MLAs were suspended, and the budget passed by a voice-vote. And the assembly hurriedly adjourned. A group of central observers were rushed to Shimla to stem the crisis in the party. The Assembly Speaker on a motion expelled the six Congress MLAs who had cross-voted. The latter approached the court against the short-circuiting of the laid-down procedure for expulsion and are expected to get a stay. Pratibha Singh’s son and PWD Minister, Vikramaditya Singh, announced his resignation from the government. He said he felt humiliated, suggesting that the CM did not allow him to function.
Predictably, senior Congress leaders accused the BJP of trying to topple the Sukhu government. Such finger-pointing was pointless, when only a few days before the RS poll senior party leader Anand Sharma had openly warned against the nomination of an outsider. How could the BJP have had a hand in nominating Sukhu as CM, ignoring the claim of Pratibha Singh or her son for the CM’s post. In fact the mother-son duo on multiple occasions maintained that the victory of the Congress was due to the popularity of the late Raja Virbhadra Singh.
Given the precarious numbers in the Assembly, the Congress government in Himachal is no longer safe, though for the time being the threat may have passed. Central leaders also managed to prevail on Vikramaditya Singh to withdraw his resignation as PWD minister. With the Lok Sabha polls in April-May, and given the popularity of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, it will be a miracle if a divided Congress can win even a single seat of the total four in the State.
Meanwhile, although Congress was not in the fray in the RS poll in UP, the setback suffered by the Samajwadi Party is bound to adversely impact the party’s chances in the Lok Sabha polls. Having entered into a seat-sharing pact with the SP, under which the Congress will contest 17 seats while the SP would 63, the open rebellion in the SP, with seven of its members voting for the BJP candidate, will further weaken the position of the Congress candidates in the LS polls, especially in the hitherto Gandhi family bastions of Amethi and Raibareilly. It is because the rebel SP MLAs are from the Amethi-Raibareilly belt.
They were nursing a grievance against Akhilesh Yadav for preventing them from attending the Pran Pritishtha ceremony of the Ram Temple in Ayodhya, even in their private capacity. Akhilesh was pandering to the Muslim sentiment, fearing that attending the Ayodhya ceremony would antagonize the large Muslim vote-bank the SP relies on to win elections. It is a different matter that even Yadavs, the caste which strongly supports the SP, were angry with Akhilesh for failing to attend the grand inaugural of the Ayodhya temple.
The strain in the SP ranks does not augur well for the INDI alliance. The SP- Congress seat-sharing alliance cannot be insulated should the SP weaken further. Also, in case the Gandhis choose to contest from Amethi and Raibareily, the SP support will be crucial. But the SP MLAs from the region have rebelled against the party, therefore making the Gandhis further vulnerable in those two erstwhile bastions of the Gandhi family.
With the Left Front in Kerala staking claim on the Wayanad Lok Sabha seat, currently held by Rahul Gandhi, and Sonia Gandhi opting for the back entry into Parliament from the Rajya Sabha, the Gandhi scion this time around may choose a safe seat in Telangana instead of risking defeat in Amethi or Raibareilly. When the Gandhis themselves scour around the country for safe seats, the morale of the Opposition cannot be very high. The setback to the Congress in HP and SP in UP foreshadows the shape of things to come in the next few months when the parliamentary poll is announced. Incidentally, Rahul Gandhi's Yatra 2.0 is turning out to be damp squib, with the people en route giving it scant attention.
Disclaimer: Opinions expressed are author's personal.
Read More
