Regional parties suddenly gunning for congress

Dr. Duggaraju Srinivasa Rao

In two months’ time the political script of the opposition camp has run an unexpected course. The bonhomie that was there in the August meet, convened by acting president of Congress Sonia Gandhi, has vanished by October. All regional parties, which the Congress expected to tow its line, have now trained their guns on the grand old party. Perhaps the deliberations at the Congress working committee meeting is the only new development since the August meet of 19 parties. Resurrection of Rahul Gandhi on to the presidential chair, the chief agenda of CWC might have triggered the current reaction of regional parties and their statements sound lack of confidence in Rahul Gandhi’s leadership. New coalitions and consolidation of friendships among the regional parties are being brokered by regional party leaders as they see great gains in a situation where the track record of their chief adversary, BJP, is not that great in winning states where regional parties are fully entrenched.

Perhaps that may be the reason for Lalu Prasad Yadav firing first salvo at Congress, rather than on CM Nitish Kumar his main rival in the state, on his return to his home state after 3 years of incarceration. Observers none expected such sting from Lalu, perceived firm supporter of Sonia Gandhi, is expected not to react so sharply on Congress the minute he landed in Patna. Lalu Yadav questioned the usefulness of Congress as an ally by saying “why should we give one extra seat to Congress to lose even the deposit”.  Congress’s counter that “Lalu is having a secret pact with BJP” completed the split of the alliance. The Nitish Kumar lead JUD cleverly threw its net in the troubled water by Dalit card to widen the schism between RJD and Congress.  JDU accused Lalu Yadav of showing his anti-Dalit mindset, Bihar Congress chief Das happens to be a Dalit, and to strengthen its argument JDU mentioned the boycott of recent President of India Ramandh Kovind’s visit to Bihar by Tejaswi Yadav. President of India is also a Dalit.

Mamata Banerjee and her TMC is more belligerent in its anti-Congress mood. “Congress seems to be busy dealing with its internal problems and we can’t wait eternally for Congress to take lead. We can’t sit idle so we are going ahead with our expansion plans” is what the TMC MP said.   Mamata is not hiding her intention to poaching established Congress leaders. She had Congress leaders from Assam. Tripura, Uttar Pradesh and Goa into TMC’s fold. The Bengal based party defended its admission of Congress leaders into its fold by quoting the Congress party action of admitting Kaniah Kumar from CPI.  Mamata is now projecting not only herself as the challenger to Narendra Modi but also TMC as the real Congress and appealing for all those Congressmen to join her to dislodge BJP.

The north-Indian regional parties have already shown their back to Congress. The SP which fought along with Congress in 2017 elections in UP distanced itself this time as Akhilesh Yadav felt there is no gain from Rahul Gandhi campaign in his state. The feel of burdensome Congress is also felt by BSP and other smaller regional parties which are caste based. Those regional parties already exploded their anger against Congress as both Akhilesh and Mayavati feel the recovery of that party will hurt their vote banks.

Elsewhere, throwing Congress out from their states was successfully achieved by many regional parties. The deceit of dividing the Telugu speaking people for political gains by Congress lead to the emergence of two strong regional parties in Telengana and residual Andhra Pradesh. Y.S. Jaganmohana Reddy lead YSR Congress party decimated Sonia lead Congress in Andhra Pradesh and in Telangana, the Congress is in a self-destructive mood and TRS party headed by KCR is playing its role in eliminating Congress from Deccan plateau. In Karnataka the relations between the regional party JDS and Congress are at its lowest. The way those two parties are fighting themselves for the October 30 slated by elections seems to be a fight for finish. JDS is accusing Congress of anti-Muslim bias by pointing out that party putting up candidates against the JDS sponsored Muslim candidates. In Tamil Nadu Congress is currently aligned with DMK. Whether it is DMK or AIDMK they have their own strategy of retaining Congress in their hold and not allowing it to grow in that state.  The two Dravidian parties have the history of changing their allegiance very easily from one national party to other. For those two parties it is power that matters and not the principles.

The communist parties are name sake national parties while in reality they are worse that regional parties in their popularity currently. The CPM Kerala unit is not for an alliance with Congress while the Bengal unit may like to have. Currently it is Kerala group which is dominant and the national unit have to follow Kerala CM Vijayan dikath as he is the only available fund raiser for the CPM. 

In this scenario it seems that regional parties which are not ideologically similar to BJP is indirectly joining that party in fulfilling its dream of achieving Congress Mukth Bharat. The current efforts of regional parties in gunning Congress is primarily an extension of Modi-Shah duo idea of putting Congress party on the mat. BJP couldn’t achieve their goal of Congree Mukth Bharat despite being in power for 7 years. But now it seems to be a reality much before 2024 parliamentary election with the collective effort of strong regional parties.

(Author is retired professor and occasional contributor for dailies and magazines on politics and environmental issues. The views expressed are personal opinion of the author. He can be reached at duggarajusrinivasarao@gmail.com)