Battlelines drawn within Congress

VIEWPOINT

AMITABH SHUKLA

BJP may have its share of inner party tussle and one upmanship but Congress clearly has the edge when it comes to leaders exchanging blows in public, physically as well as through their statements.

The latest came on the same day last week in the two neighboring States of Punjab and Haryana. In Yamunanagar, supporters of Union Minister Selja and loyalists of Haryana Chief Minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda not only abused each other but also exchanged blows. For a long time, Selja has been in the forefront of a faction in the party which is against Hooda and alleging discrimination in developmental work.  In Punjab, former Chief Minister Capt Amarinder Singh raised a banner of revolt against PCC President Partap Singh Bajwa questioning his style of functioning and announcement of names for polls through a press statement. After his removal as the State Congress President, Capt Amarinder has used all tricks in his sleeve to destabilise Bajwa, going to the extent of writing letters to prove the alleged links of his successor even with militants and smugglers. 

In both Punjab and Haryana it is not uncommon to find workers hurling shoes, abuses, sticks and anything that can be used as a missile on each other in their internal meetings. The presence of senior leaders is never a deterrent, rather a motivation to target each other. The hooligans in such meetings want to get noticed by those for whom they are raising their voice, fists and lathis and invariably get rewarded in the long term when their boss gets a good position in the Government.  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.

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 the late 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 Chaudhary Birender Singh organized a rally in Jind on August 20, Chief Minister Hooda absented himself though AICC General Secretaries Shakeel Ahmed and Digvijay Singh participated. If Hooda had participated, Birender supporters would have obviously heckled him. Similarly, both Selja and Birender always avoid any official function of Hooda to prevent it becoming a mini battle field between the supporters of each other.

Ask the Congress leaders about such reckless acts on the part of the workers and they would say that as long 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, no one minds such a behavior. Severe infighting and turf battle is not limited to Punjab and Haryana. In the national Capital, Delhi, Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit is battling PCC President JP Aggarwal as well as AICC General Secretary Ajay Maken, her under study turned bête noire. In fact, in the last almost 15 years of Dikshit’s tenure, the PCC Presidents always remained against her whoever it was—Ram Babu Sharma, Chaudhary Prem Singh or Subhash Chopra.

The battlelines within the Congress are drawn everywhere, wherever you go in India. In Himachal Pradesh, no one is openly speaking against Chief Minister Virbhadra Singh fearing reprisals but PCC chief Sukhwinder Singh Sukhu and two ministers—GS Bali and Thakur Kaul Singh are against the style of functioning of the Chief Minister. They are planning their next move deftly. Haryana has Selja, Birender Singh and Gurgaon MP Rao Inderjit lined up against Hooda.  In Chhattisgarh , it is PCC President Charandas Mahant versus former Chief Minister Ajit Jogi. In Madhya Pradesh, the internal fight is three fold with Jyotiraditya Scindia versus Kamal Nath versus Digvijay Singh.

In Tamil Nadu again there are three players pitched against each other for turf war—Jayanthi Natarajan GK Wasan and P Chidambaram.  How can Kerala be behind as there are factions of Oommen Chandy and Ramesh Chennithala in the southern State. In Uttar Pradesh, there is hardly anything to fight for except the crumbs. But none of the central leaders from the state share a rapport and can sit together to formulate a winning strategy for the state with Amethi MP Rahul Gandhi. In Bihar, Congress does not see itself in power for the next two decades and so there is little question of fighting each other but in neighboring Jharkhand, a bitter war is being fought amongst the leaders for ministerial berths and positions in government and they are not leaving any opportunity to run each other down. 

The Congress Vice President has already issued warning and instructions to all leaders not to indulge in factional fights but no one is listening. All of them are hailing Sonia and Rahul but that is only to justify their political moves. All of them have their own little turfs to protect and the party comes second. A senior leader of the party had an interesting take on the infighting in Congress. He told me that when there are 20 leaders in a State, one becomes the PCC President and 19 start working against him and seek his removal. When the PCC President is finally removed and one from the group of 19 is given the charge, the leader who has been removed now joins the group of 19 and starts working against the new incumbent. “This is a typical Congress tradition,” the leader summed up. (August 26, 2013) 

 http://www.dailypioneer.com/state-editions/chandigarh/2013-08-26-20005.html

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Bihar becomes a quagmire of political possibilities

VIEWPOINT

AMITABH SHUKLA

Mahatma Gandhi started his experiments of mass mobilisation from Champaran, 96 years ago in 1917. As Champaran and Bihar prepare to celebrate the centenary of the mass movement against the British Indigo planters and the setting up of the Bhitiharwa Ashram in the district, Congress sits on the sidelines wondering what to do to regain its lost base in the State.

It has been almost a quarter of century when Congress lost its dominant political space to resurgent OBC politics of the State. A visit to the district Congress office in the heart of the small town of Bettiah, the headquarters of West Champaran district, illustrates the position of Congress in the region and the State.

The district headquarters of the 127-year-old party hardly hosted any function or had any visitors for the last several years. The wooden doors and even its frames have been removed from most of the rooms over a period of time by the miscreants and the dilapidated building in a sprawling complex could fall anytime. There is no chair or table anywhere and no one visits the place. Even the children of the nearby areas do not play in the compound which has no boundary wall, fearing that this could be a haunted place. Stray buffaloes and pigs make merry in the pools of water in the monsoons.

A day before Independence Day this year, the sprawling 2-acre complex in the heart of the town, was inundated in knee-deep water till someone realised late in the afternoon that the national flag had to be unfurled the next day. A cut was hurriedly made to ensure that the rain water collected in the complex could be drained out. On Independence Day, merely three people turned out for the flag hoisting ceremony and the senior most amongst them, an 81-year old, was given the honour of unfurling the Tricolor. After doing the honours, the senior citizens simply walked to their houses in the vicinity. They were doing the ritual for the last few years only out of habit and the sentiments attached to Independence Day. They swore by the name of Mahatma Gandhi but none of them believed in policies and programmes of the Congress of this century under Sonia Gandhi, Rahul Gandhi and Manmohan Singh.

The state of the Congress office in the district, often called the Karma Bhoomi of Mahatma Gandhi, a Congress bastion for decades, reflects the position of the party in the rest of Bihar. Not surprisingly, Congress last won a Lok Sabha election in West Champaran parliamentary constituency (earlier Bettiah) almost 30 years ago in 1984 when a sympathy wave after assassination of Indira Gandhi saw it through. Ask the local residents here and they will tell you that this parliamentary constituency would not send a Congress nominee to Parliament for the next two decades unless a miracle happened.

Not only West Champaran constituency but in entire Bihar, a realignment of political forces and castes is taking place after the 17-year-old alliance between JDU and BJP ended on a bitter note. In this quagmire of alignments and emerging caste equations, no one for sure knows how the three main parties-JDU, BJP and Lalu Prasad’s RJD would fare in the Lok Sabha elections in the State. Congress has been practically written off unless it manages an alliance with JDU. Even Lok Sabha Speaker Meira Kumar will have a tough time in Sasaram if she contests as people of the State and her constituency saw her only on TV news channels not in the State and amongst the people who elected her.

Of the 40 members it sends to Lok Sabha, JDU got 20, BJP 12, RJD 4, Congress 2 and Independents 2 in the 2009 polls. As the caste equations assiduously built over the last almost two decades by JDU-BJP has gone topsy-turvy, even the seasoned political analysts in Bihar would find it difficult to predict the pre 2014 voter mood. BJP could gain in the State but Lalu Prasad’s RJD too is expected to do better than last time. The caste combinations of all the parties have crumbled and there is little time now to consolidate and cultivate new vote banks.

The Muslims in the State are divided between JDU and RJD and even though JDU would get a chunk of their votes as Nitish Kumar withdrew from the NDA on the issue of Narendra Modi, RJD is not a pushover. It has started a campaign saying how Kumar will join NDA after the polls and how he was with the BJP all these years. This has confused the Muslims who will go for strategic voting, looking for a candidate of either the JDU or RJD who is in a better position to defeat BJP in each of the 40 seats.

This polarisation and strategic voting by Muslims would help BJP in several segments and give it an opportunity to consolidate its upper caste vote bank and also get the votes of urban OBCs and even upwardly mobile dalits. But the gains are not significant as it has lost significant sections of the poorer OBCs or what is called the non-creamy layer due to its alliance with JDU. While the Yadav community nurses the ambition of getting Lalu Prasad a dominant political space and the Kurmi community to Nitish Kumar, it is the other intermediary castes which are being targeted by all the parties to get a lion’s share of votes.

Both JDU and BJP will have to select 40 candidates each and that is not an easy task as last time they fought on 25 and 15 seats, respectively. Political turncoats are sensing an opportunity here and they can switch seamlessly from one party to the other.

Sadhu Yadav, brother in-law of Lalu Prasad, has met Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi indicating that no one is untouchable. He fought on a Congress ticket from West Champaran last time and could well be a BJP candidate anywhere in the State in 2014. JDU has realised that there could be desertions in a closely fought contest and has taken back the suspension of its MPs. BJP is closely watching the situation and doing its homework to select 25 winning candidates. As 2014 could perhaps be the last time before the political obituary of RJD is written, the party is motivated and already campaigning.

The churning of caste and community equations is still taking place in Bihar even though polls are not far off. The macro issues of performance of UPA and development would be the core issues along with the micro issues of caste equations and consolidation of newer vote banks. At this juncture, Bihar is headed for a three-way contest but the most bitter fight will be between the old allies-JDU and BJP. (August 19, 2013) 

http://www.dailypioneer.com/state-editions/chandigarh/bihar-becomes-a-quagmire-of-political-possibilities.html

http://www.dailypioneer.com/state-editions/dehradun/2013-08-19-19105.html

Rajasthan, MP, Chhatisgarh and Delhi Gateway to 2014

VIEWPOINT

AMITABH SHUKLA

Forget opinion polls and study of voter behaviour, the results of Assembly elections in four states—Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh and Delhi — weeks before the Lok Sabha elections, would be first and true indicator of the way political wind is blowing in the country.

Together, these four States send 72 members to Lok Sabha and in the 2009 polls, Congress had a distinct edge, getting 41 members elected from these States while the BJP had to be content with only 29 seats. Clearly, percentage wise the size of Congress victory and its margin over BJP in these four States was more or less similar to the one it had at the national level where it formed the government. Congress got 204 seats while the BJP had to do with 117 which saw Manmohan Singh getting a second term as Prime Minister.

Given the sample size of actual voting in the four States headed for Assembly polls, which also includes the metropolitan city of Delhi, the two main parties must be closely watching the countdown to Assembly elections to get a feel of the voter’s pulse and their heart beat. There is little doubt that whoever wins the most Lok Sabha seats in these states will form the next government in Delhi, the way it happened in 2009.

Of course, voting mindset and pattern differ from Assembly elections to Lok Sabha elections, but in these four States, voting pattern in both Assembly polls in 2008 and Lok Sabha polls in 2009 was more or less similar. This was perhaps due to the fact that there was a difference of only six months in voting for Assembly polls and the Lok Sabha polls in all these four states. In six months, the voter behaviour does not change much.

Congress which was in power in Rajasthan at the time of Lok Sabha election in 2009, got an impressive 21 of the 25 Lok Sabha seats while the BJP performed poorly getting only 3 seats. In Delhi, where Sheila Dikshit has carved out a Congress bastion for almost 15 years, BJP was completely wiped out, failing to open its account as Congress won all the seven seats.

In the BJP bastion of Chhattisgarh where Raman Singh was firmly in saddle, the saffron party won an impressive 10 of the 11 seats with Congress getting the remaining one. In Madhya Pradesh, Congress sought to make a comeback by getting 12 of the 29 seats. BJP got 16 even though it was ruling the State and even in Assembly polls had performed impressively.

Given the current scenario, of the four states going to Assembly polls in December this year, three could see BJP forming the Government and with a little luck and effort even the fourth could be in its grip. There is little to doubt that BJP will get back to power for the third consecutive term in Chhattisgarh and Madhya Pradesh given the fact that Congress has more or less washed its hands off the two states. Though Congress has several towering leaders from Madhya Pradesh—Digvijay Singh, Jyotiraditya Scindia, Kamal Nath amongst others, it does not have the State in its radar of victory as of now. In Chhattisgarh, the setback by the Maoists killing top Congress leaders is a factor but even before that the party had done little to counter Raman Singh government. His model of Food Security and efficient administration despite large Maoist presence, can clearly win him another term without much of an electoral struggle.

In Rajasthan, anti incumbency is set to take a toll on the Ashok Gehlot Government as the state has seen incumbent governments being voted out in recent years. Even in the last Assembly polls in December 2008, Congress just managed to scrape through despite a bitter infighting in BJP and its victory was hardly impressive. Now when, Vasundhara Raje is raring to go with BJP uniting behind her, Congress would find it difficult to retain the State.

The most interesting battle would perhaps be in Delhi Assembly elections. Three terms of anti-incumbency of the State Government and two terms of the Central Government has had some impact but not enough to ensure the defeat of Sheila Dikshit in the national Capital.  Though BJP won all the three municipal corporations in the Municipal elections, infighting and inability to find the winning formula has kept the party in the backseat. If it comes out with a trump card in the remaining four months and the voters indeed want to punish Dikshit for her acts of omission and commission pertaining to Commonwealth Games, then BJP might have the final word. But even if BJP wins, it will be more due to voter fatigue and the disappointment with 10 years of UPA rule than anything else. In either case, Delhi promises to be a photo finish and is being watched closely.

Given this scenario, it would not be surprising to see BJP in 2014 Lok Sabha polls getting close to what Congress got in 2009, something in the range of 38-42 seats with Congress getting in the range of 26-30 seats in the four States of Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh and Delhi. These four States would see a direct fight between the two main claimants of power in 2014—Congress and BJP and there is practically no presence of any other party.  The Aam Aadmi Party would make a political debut in Delhi and remains an untested phenomenon though unlikely to affect the outcome. Bahujan Samaj Party started well in Madhya Pradesh but has lost the script now. In Chhatisgarh and Rajasthan, there is no party worth the name except Congress and BJP.

If BJP did well in all the states and manages to form Government in at least three, this would be an ominous sign for the Congress in the Lok Sabha elections. If it wins all the four, the writing would be on the wall. There is a section in the Congress which believes that Lok Sabha elections could be advanced to be held simultaneously with the Assembly polls in these four states so that there is no adverse fallout. They also believe that Samajwadi Party could pull out at the earliest given an opportunity and Congress should preempt that possibility and prevent SP getting an edge in Uttar Pradesh by announcing early Lok Sabha polls. Whatever the case may be, in the final analysis, the results of these four states would indeed prove to be the true indicator as to who would rule from New Delhi for the next five years starting May 2014. (August 12, 2013) 

http://www.dailypioneer.com/state-editions/chandigarh/2013-08-11-18385.html

http://www.dailypioneer.com/state-editions/dehradun/rajasthan-mp-chhattisgarh-and-delhi-gateway-to-2014.html 

Will the Food Security Act be a game changer for Congress?

VIEWPOINT

AMITABH SHUKLA

Last week, I was in Delhi to attend a seminar on Food Security in which the model adopted by the Chhatisgarh Government for almost eight years now stood out as a harbinger of change, something which the other State Governments and the Centre need to learn from.

The State Government brought in the Chhatisgarh Food Security Act much before the Centre thought of it and the law was passed in the Assembly in December last year. The Government there did its homework, prepared the ground, brought in the law only after eight years of the model being implemented when it had already become a runaway success in providing food to the needy all over the State by 7th of every month.

Most people outside Chhatisgarh know the State more for the Maoist violence but few know the reasons why the Raman Singh Government was voted for the second consecutive term and there is little reason to suspect that it will not complete a hat trick in the Assembly elections to be held later this year. Food Security is obviously one of the main factors, even critic would concede.

Ahead of the Monsoon session of Parliament which will debate the proposed Food Security Act for the country, I fail to understand how it will be a game changer for the Congress the way NREGA and loan waiver were in the 2009 Lok Sabha. Most of the States are implementing various models of food security for the last several years offering rice at Rs 1, 2 or Rs 3 per kg. In fact, this has been the electoral agenda of Dravidian parties for several decades now and also catapulted the charismatic NT Rama Rao in power in Andhra Pradesh over 25 years ago.

Why will people vote for the Congress in Chhatisgarh on this issue where food security is in place for the last 8 years or in Tamil Nadu where it exists for the last four decades. In Punjab, the Akali Dal-BJP Government has put in place a roti-dal scheme in which 15 lakh families benefit, a figure which has now gone up to 30 lakh after the Ordinance of the Central Government, covering 48 per cent of the population of the State.

Though no one is opposing the Food Security Act per se, State Governments are saying they already have a better model firmly in place for years. Chhatisgarh of course has a model which needs to be implemented and amended keeping in view the ground realities in every State. Then you have the claim of Punjab Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal that the Centre merely copied the food security ordinance from the atta-dal scheme introduced by Akali Dal Government in 2007.

The Akali Dal leaders say that the food security ordinance is a “vote security ordinance of the Congress and just a political gimmick”. They are accusing the Congress of “trying to woo the electorate in view of ensuing Lok Sabha polls with the half-baked food security ordinance”.  Other leaders in the State say the scheme was not a realistic one. Tamil Nadu Chief Minister J Jayalalithaa has termed it as “food insecurity ordinance” suggesting several amendments in her letter to the Prime Minister.  She suggested amending the Bill so that allocation of foodgrain to those states that are implementing a public distribution system delivering a higher level of coverage than the ordinance provides for is protected.  She said due to the Ordinance, the monthly allocation of food grains for the State will decline by nearly 100,000 tonnes, from the current level of 296,000 tonnes. The centre’s food security scheme aims to provide five kg of grain at Rs 1-3 per kg to 67 per cent of country’s population. It is expected to cost Rs 1.2 lakh crore.

In the Delhi seminar, Chhattisgarh Chief Minister Raman Singh supported Food Security for the poor but criticised the national Food Security Ordinance saying it had inadequate provisions and would be ineffective when implemented. He said the central Act covers 67 per cent of population whereas Chattisgarh scheme covers 90 per cent. He urged the Centre to emulate Chhattisgarh Food Security model for betterment of poor in the country. The Chief Minister added that different States have different criteria and every State has different economic situation so one needs to understand these aspects before implementing the Food Security Act. He said it took him about six years in the field to prepare the ground work before implementing the Act in the State, while the Centre has done no homework at all.

According to Raman Singh, Public Distribution System is a chain that involves production, procurement and distribution of food grain and to implement the Food Security Act, one has to have all the three in place. “Does the Centre have the storage capacity to store the food grains and what about the transparency aspect in the Act?” he asked,  adding that it will not take less than ten years for the government before it can put a system in place to implement the Food Security Act. 

As the politics on food grain continues and brownie points scored, there is no plan in place for procurement and storage of the food grains.  Travel on the highways in Punjab and Haryana and you find thousands of tones of foodgrain lying in the open, covered merely by a plastic sheet. There is simply no storage place and movement of the food grains from the food basket of the country is extremely slow.

When procurement of wheat began in Punjab this year, it already had nearly 8 million tonnes in the godowns which was much more than what is normally kept for meeting any possible food crisis. “The movement to other parts of the country was extremely slow in the last 12 months — both Rabi and Kharif crops,” an official admitted, adding that the Centre needs to look into this aspect seriously and urgently.

Those involved in procurement and distribution say storage capacity is simply not there, private sector is not coming up in the food storage sector and the food grains have to face the vagaries of nature lying in the open. They want these to be addressed and incorporated in the proposed Act so that accountability is fixed and wastage be treated as an offence.

When Parliament debates the issues threadbare in the Monsoon Session, the country expects members to rise above partisan party politics and address all issues raised by the stakeholders which includes procurement, scientific storage, proper movement and strengthening of the Public Distribution System.  All these have to be incorporated in the proposed Act along with the provisions of successful models like the one in Chhatisgarh. Food security cannot be merely treated as a vote bank politics and allowed to die down, the way several central schemes have. Congress led UPA has already started treating it as an electoral gimmick for the Lok Sabha elections allowing several rough edges in the Ordinance which if implemented, could only lead to failure. (August 5, 2013) 

http://www.dailypioneer.com/state-editions/chandigarh/2013-08-05-17482.html

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