VIEWPOINT
AMITABH SHUKLA
With Narendra Modi firmly in
saddle and Congress yet to recover from the humiliating defeat in the May Lok
Sabha polls, political gaze is gradually shifting to the Assembly elections
scheduled later this year.
For BJP, the momentum generated
by Lok Sabha poll results, would make it the favourite even though Assembly
polls are fought on local issues, regional factors and caste combinations which
outweigh the national issues. But for
the Congress, these are not merely polls but a battle of survival. If it loses the
States it is ruling, it is a downward spiral all the way which will be
extremely difficult to control.
Amongst the States going for
polls, Congress rules Haryana while it is the leading partner in the alliance
in Maharashtra . In Jharkhand, the party is supporting
the Hemant Soren-led coalition Government while in Jammu and Kashmir it is
supporting the alliance Government headed by Omar Abdullah. So there you have
it, Congress has a stake in all the States which go to polls by the end of this
year or January next year.
As it is a matter of survival for
the Congress rather than a mere election, it is exploring options to change
leadership in the two States before the model code of conduct comes into force.
In fact, Congress would have never thought of leadership change in any State
but for a revolt in the party in Assam
to change Chief Minister Tarun Gogoi. As Assam ’s
case came under scrutiny, the central leadership thought it prudent to review
Haryana and Maharashtra as well.
In Haryana, Bhupinder Singh Hooda
has been the Chief Minister for the last two terms and the law of diminishing
returns has caught up with him. In the 2009 Lok Sabha polls, Congress won nine
of the 10 Lok Sabha seats here, ensuring that the UPA got a second consecutive
term. But in Assembly polls five months later, Hooda struggled to get 40 of the
90 seats for the Congress. It’s a different matter that he formed the
Government after breaking the Haryana Janhit Congress, then led by Bhajan Lal
and getting support of the Independents by offering them ministerial berths and
positions of power. But the message in the 2009 Assembly polls was clear. The
Congress was no longer the undisputed political force in the State and it was
only due to the badly divided Opposition that it managed a second term.
After October 2009 Assembly
polls, Hooda’s hold in the State continued to decline and so did the support
base of Congress. In his second tenure, there was massive dissidence against
Hooda with most of the senior leaders expressing no-confidence in his
leadership. Rao Inderjit Singh, the MP from Gurgaon, launched an attack against
him for indulging in regional discrimination. Eventually, Inderjit left the
Congress, joined BJP and won from Gurgaon and is now a Minister in the Modi
Government. Chaudhary Dharambir, a Congress MLA, was also a major dissident who
dumped his party on the eve of the Lok Sabha polls, joined BJP and won from
Bhiwani-Mahendragarh constituency. The third prominent leader who left Congress
was none other than his close aide and friend — Venod Sharma. He resigned his
MLA seat and will float a regional party. His sympathies too lie with the BJP
at this point of time.
Then, there are two leaders in
the Congress who did not leave the party but continued to attack Hooda publicly
in all forums, within and outside the party. Rajya Sabha MPs Chaudhary Birender
Singh and Selja never missed an opportunity to attack the Jat leader from
Rohtak.
All these took a heavy toll on
Congress and the party lost the Lok Sabha polls badly, winning only one of the
10 seats in the state. The lone seat which Congress won was Rohtak, where
Hooda’s son Deepender Hooda managed a rare victory for the party.
Now when the writing is on the
wall, a leadership change would perhaps help the party salvage some honour in
the Assembly polls. The only problem is that there is hardly any credible
replacement for Hooda. The probable names are Selja, Birender Singh, Randeep
Singh Surjewala and Ashok Tanwar. Perhaps Hooda would continue as he
systematically ensured that no second line of leadership emerged in the State.
He is also seen to be close to the Gandhi family like his Maharashtra
counterpart Chavan.
Senior Congress leaders feel that
at this juncture, no one would risk taking the reins of the Government when
polls are merely three months away. “Whoever is the Chief Minister, whether it
is Hood or someone else, he would lead the party to sunset, to a certain defeat
in the October polls,” summed up a senior party functionary. It seems despite
the urgent need for a leadership change, Congress is hesitant as Hooda has the
potential to inflict more damage if he is removed on the eve of polls. What all
this means is that Congress has practically written off Haryana even though the
Opposition is badly divided and the excellent performance of BJP in the Lok
Sabha polls may not necessarily mean that it will win assembly polls as
comfortably.
In Maharashtra ,
Chief Minister Prithviraj Chavan has been blamed for one of the worst ever
performance of the Congress in the State. It managed to win only two seats in
the State, one of which was Nanded from where arch rival of the Chief Minister,
Ashok Chavan got ticket despite the CMs objections and won. Its ally NCP won four seats and the tally of
the alliance was merely 6 of the 48 seats in the State. The State is scheduled
to go to polls in December but elections could be advanced to be held together
with Haryana in October. Chavan was sent to Maharashtra
from Delhi in a damage control
exercise after the Adarsh scam. He was an AICC general secretary and MoS in the
PMO, a link between 10 Janpath and the Prime Minister in the UPA regime. Being
a novice in State politics, hardly helped as Congress’ performance in the Lok
Sabha polls showed.
With talk about a change of guard
gaining momentum in Maharashtra, the names of former Home Minister Sushilkumar
Shinde, State Ministers Shivajirao Moghe, Bala Saheb Thorat and Radhakrishna
Vikhe Patil along with Shivajirao Deshmukh who is the Chairman of Maharashtra
Legislative Council, is doing the rounds and they are meeting the senior
Congress leaders. Ironically, this is a State where the script has already been
written whether Chavan is retained or removed.
Polls in Jharkhand are scheduled
in the first week of January 2015 but the Election Commission is contemplating
to hold all the assembly polls together. So it could well be advanced in the
State. Given the BJP-Modi wave in Lok Sabha polls, BJP is the favourite and
already a campaign has begun to project former Finance Minister Yashwant Sinha
as the first non-tribal chief ministerial candidate of the party. Congress, in
alliance with Jharkhand Mukti Morcha and Rashtriya Janata Dal is seeking to
reverse the trend but has nothing to show on the ground except a tattered
coalition facing a series of charges.
Given the ground realities in
Haryana, Maharashtra , Jharkhand and even in Jammu &
Kashmir, it would only be a miracle which can help check the decimation of the
Congress in Assembly polls.
Procrastination and ad hoc
approach in decision making has further compounded the woes of the party.
Surprisingly, it has again formed Antony Committee to look into the reasons for
defeat even though the same committee has gone through poll results in the past
and its recommendations have never been implemented. Will Congress come out of
the deep slumber? That is the million dollar question troubling everybody. (June 23, 2014)
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