TURF WAR IN CONGRESS

FACTIONALISM TURNS PHYSICAL AS RIVAL FACTIONS COMES TO BLOWS

Congress may not have a copyright to the slogan “party with a difference” but it has indeed pipped the BJP to claim the slogan in Punjab and the neighbouring Haryana. In no party would you find, workers hurling shoes, abuses and what not at each other in their internal meetings. In Punjab, some party meetings have turned into mini battlefields with the workers treating each other to choicest of Punjabi abuses and hurling anything they find handy at each other with a zeal which would leave people wondering if they belong to the same party.

Three days ago, a Congress demonstration in Fazilka against the ruling SAD-BJP combine turned out to be a free for all – a kabaddi for some, wrestling and boxing for others. Instead of opposing the state government for which the demonstration had been planned, the local leaders started opposing each other. For over half an hour, it was “might is right” as the workers hurled sticks, bricks, water bottles, even pens at each other. A former MLA, at the receiving end, suffered a heart attack in the process. He was shifted to the hospital. A serious contender for the seat in next year’s Assembly election had to get a thick plaster coat on his broken leg in the fracas. A Block President was injured. Over a dozen workers returned with either a broken nose, bruised face, a twisted arm or torn clothes.

Interestingly, at stake was not a trophy after the finals of a kabaddi match but a simple dispute - under whose leadership was the demonstration being carried out?. The supporters of two contenders for party ticket battled it out physically for supremacy and none of the factions won as the issue remained undecided.

A few days ago, AICC in-charge of the state, Gulchain Singh Charak saw a demonstration of this “free for all” at two separate meetings at Gurdaspur and Jalandhar. Fisticuffs, pulling, pushing, abusing throwing objects etc became order of the day and the Congress leader had to be safely evacuated from the venue. Charak, a party leader from Jammu and Kashmir, wanted to emerge as a parallel power centre in Punjab politics; he had to beat a hasty retreat given the acrimony of leaders at the district level. He called off his entire tour of the districts. PCC President Captain Amarinder Singh even ordered an inquiry into the indiscipline. Charak said that such workers would be firmly dealt with. But every Congress worker knows that nothing comes out of such enquiries and warnings as such behaviour comes “naturally” to them.

In Haryana, AICC General Secretary in-charge B K Hariprasad too is well aware how to play it safe when Congress workers of rival factions clash with each other in the meetings. None of his meetings in Haryana has passed off without the aggressive display and posturing of one faction against the other. He has been a youth Congress leader in Karnataka and knows the behavioral pattern of the fellow Congressmen like the back of his hand.

A few years ago, I was covering a Congress rally at Gohana (Sonepat) in Haryana. At that time a fierce turf war was being fought between Bhajan Lal, who was in Congress then and Bhupinder Singh Hooda, who was trying to challenge him as the undisputed leader of the Haryana Congress. In the presence of central leaders, Hooda supporters shouted down Bhajan Lal and the situation could have taken an ugly turn had it not been for the presence of senior AICC functionaries. Some of the Hooda supporters were even armed with black flags which they waived the moment Bhajan Lal disembarked from his vehicle. This was as if an “enemy” of the Congress had made a sudden appearance. The fact that Bhajan Lal had been at the helm of affairs in the state for over a decade was completely lost to the protesting workers.

Now when Hooda has firmly established himself as the most acceptable face of the Congress at the state level, his supporters no longer indulge in such wanton acts. However, rival factions still fight it out for turf space at local meetings in the presence of the Chief Minister.

When I asked a senior Congress leader about such reckless acts on the part of the workers, he simply said it was because of “too much democratization” at the local level and “too much centralization” at the central level. “As long as you raise the slogans of ‘Sonia Gandhi Zindabad’ and Rahul Gandhi Zindabad’ and remain loyal to the first family of the party, such acts are condoned,” he said.

Having covered the Congress party as a reporter for a while now, I know that the Congress leadership has a deliberate policy of not making any one leader too powerful in a state, lest he emerges as a power centre on his/her own right. When Bhajan Lal was the all powerful Congress satrap in Haryana, he had to contend with Hooda. When Hooda became the all powerful leader, he has to contend with Union Minister Selja and AICC General Secretary Birender Singh.

In Punjab, Captain Amarinder Singh had to fight a long turf war with Rajinder Kaur Bhattal in his tenure as Chief Minister so much so that MLAs loyal to each other were being paraded in New Delhi every now and then. When the party lost the 2007 Assembly polls, a delicate balancing act was done with one made PCC President and the other CLP leader to sort out the leadership issue. They have entered into a peace pact as of now to accomplish the larger goal of winning the 2012 assembly polls. But no one knows how long would this “peace” last, more so if the party indeed emerges victorious in the elections.

Himachal Pradesh is no exception to this thumb rule. One faction led by Union Minister Virbhadra Singh and the other led by PCC Chief Thakur Kaul Singh exchanged blows with each other in a meeting at Mandi a few weeks ago. While the person manning the stage received a head injury, several others returned with torn clothes and bruises on their body. The state goes to polls next year and this will only intensify in the coming weeks and months.

Congress politics in the northern states is practically on similar lines. In Delhi, it was the late Ram Babu Sharma who was made the PCC President to take potshots at Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit every now and then. The AICC General Secretaries too were given charge of Delhi to cut Dikshit to size. Now J.P. Agarwal is the PCC President and he too takes his chances once in a while against Dikshit. In Rajasthan, it is Union Minister C.P. Joshi versus Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot who are fighting each other out through their supporters.

“When the party is in power, it is a fight for the loaves of power when it is in opposition, it is a contest for the crumbs,” summed up a senior leader in Chandigarh. Few would disagree.

(The writer is Senior Editor, The Pioneer, Chandigarh)

September 18, 2011

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