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Congress gamble opens Pandora’s Box |
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The Congress failure to enter into electoral alliances with key UPA partners in Uttar Pradesh and Bihar and the decision to go it alone there has created a situation where it could be anybody’s game after the Lok Sabha elections. Party general secretary Rahul Gandhi’s remarks last week indicate that it was a considered decision of the party and not just the failure to agree on seat-sharing with the allies. If the Congress had been keen on fighting the Lok Sabha elections in the two crucial states unitedly with its allies, party president Sonia Gandhi could just have picked up the phone and called leaders such as Mulayam Singh Yadav and Lalu Prasad Yadav for a meeting to sort out the seat allocation issue and the matter could have been sorted out with some give and take.
The way Lalu Prasad Yadav could not get a meeting with Sonia Gandhi despite putting in a request for several days indicates that the grand old party was not really interested in entering into an alliance with the RJD in Bihar. The Congress perhaps thought that the RJD was a spent force in the state and a tie up with it would not be bringing much dividends to the Congress. In the event Lalu Yadav reacted in a way to protect his interests. He knew that the RJD-Congress alliance lost in the last Assembly elections in Bihar because of the failure to enter into an agreement with Ramvilas Paswan’s Lok Janshakti Party, which enjoys support in the dalit community. It was clear to him that if he could forge an alliance with Paswan, it would be much more beneficial to the RJD than a tie up with the Congress, which does not have a committed vote bank in the state.
In Uttar Pradesh, the Congress and the Samajwadi Party fell out because of differences on about five Lok Sabha seats. Mulayam Singh Yadav’s party was willing to allocate 17 or 18 seats to the Congress against its demand for 24. The matter could have been sorted out if the Congress had been prepared to give up its insistence on giving the party tickets to rebels from the Samajwadi Party like Raj Babbar. But as both the Congress and the Samajwadi Party fought their war through the media rather than on the negotiating table, an agreement could not be reached. The result is that both parties will have their candidates in most constituencies of the state.
The Congress thinkng appears to be that there is not much it can lose in Uttar Pradesh and Bihar becuase of not entering into electoral alliances with its allies. The party has only nine seats in the Lok Sabha from Uttar Pradesh and three from Bihar in the present House. Even if the Congress strength goes down by three or four, the party thinks that it will not be too high a price to pay for expanding or rebuilding its base in these two crucial states in the Hindi heartland. There may be a setback in these states in the 2009 elections, but the party has its sights set on the next elections to be held five years later in the normal course. The Congress thinks that its strategy will pay off in the longer run.
Whether Sonia Gandhi and Rahul Gandhi are right in their thinking or not, the Congress move has created a situation where both the principal parties, the Congress and the BJP, may see a decline in their strength in the new Lok Sabha. The reins of power may be in the hands of the regional outfits which may emerge as the kingmakers and perhaps become the kings themselves.
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