An opportunity and a challenge for the Congress

Despite the erosion of its voter base, by virtue of being the main Opposition party, the Congress still seems an obvious choice to hold together an alternative front

The Lok Sabha elections are still three years away, but many political heavyweights have already become active. For instance, Aam Admi Party (AAP) leader and Delhi chief minister (CM), Arvind Kejriwal, recently visited Punjab, and several Opposition political leaders met at the home of Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) chief Sharad Pawar on June 22, a day after his meeting with star political strategist Prashant Kishor.

The Congress has been failing to settle its internal disputes. (PTI)

Kejriwal’s brand of “alternative politics” has been successful enough to win him two assembly elections in Delhi. The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) which swept the last general elections in Delhi, found its numbers in the assembly whittled down to eight seats.

In the last Punjab assembly elections, the AAP was all set to win, or at least put up a strong showing, when it made a strategic blunder. At a rally in Malwa, the AAP projected Kejriwal as the future CM of Punjab. The prospect of a non-Sikh resident, originally from Haryana, becoming the CM of the state was unacceptable to the powerful Jat lobby in Punjab.

This time around, Kejriwal has been careful and has declared that his party will opt for a Sikh CM after the next assembly election in the state. He has also thrown the AAP’s “alternative politics” into the mix and promised free electricity and better school education at a press conference at Chandigarh, stopping short of calling it the “Delhi model”.

Sharad Pawar is one of the country’s most wily politicians, so there was bound to be a buzz around the meeting in his house. But at the end of it all, what was the result? Barring National Conference leader Omar Abdullah’s attendance, the presence of the others, many of them outside the arena of formal politics, did not generate much political excitement. The interest in the meeting seems to have ended when it got over.

On June 25, Pawar issued a political statement in Mumbai saying, “No alternative political force, in this country, is possible without the participation of Congress”. Rashtriya Janata Dal leader, Tejashwi Yadav, endorsed this, saying, “Without Congress, the alternative cannot be imagined, it has to be the basis of (the) force. But I would like to add this also that in the states wherever the regional parties are strong, they should be kept in the driving seat.” But given Pawar’s reputation for never doing anything without a purpose, could it be that he was trying to test the waters about the public acceptance of the idea of a third front?

In the last Lok Sabha elections, there was a direct contest between the BJP and the Congress on 192 seats. Apart from these, there were around 70 seats where the Congress emerged as a key challenger. For the remaining 281 seats, there is scope for a grand alliance of regional parties. The Bengal election showed the power of these parties to unite and stop the BJP juggernaut. The Congress and the Left parties, both through their campaign and the absence of it, removed many obstacles in Mamata Banerjee’s path even though they gained nothing. Will she repay this favour in 2024?

The Congress can draw some hope from the fact that even today, in Bengal, Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, Arunachal and Manipur, there are CMs who were trained and nurtured in the Congress. There are new alliances in states such as Jharkhand and Maharashtra. If regional parties in these states collaborate with the Congress under a common minimum programme, they can give the BJP a run for its money.

However, CMs of Andhra and Telangana have gone the way of the Biju Janata Dal’s Naveen Patnaik. They have moved away from the Congress in their respective states. They feel that as long as the BJP and Congress are at each other’s throats, they can benefit. This is why they are not very aggressive towards the central government. They are fence-sitters who will wait to see which way the wind will blow.

If any real anti-incumbency sets in against the BJP, they will not hesitate to move over to the Congress or join any front if it benefits them. But, as of now, the strategy of not taking sides will prevail. In 2022, elections will be held in seven states, including Uttar Pradesh and Gujarat, giving enough time to these regional satraps to gauge the political mood before the general elections.

All this provides the Congress with an opportunity and a challenge. The Congress has been failing to settle its internal disputes. From 1989, its voter base has been steadily eroding but, despite all this, by virtue of being the main national Opposition party, it still seems an obvious choice to hold together an alternative front.

But for this, it will have to be seen how successfully Rahul Gandhi can discard his old way of functioning.

Shashi Shekhar is editor-in-chief, Hindustan

The views expressed are personal