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Congress : Secular Front not taking off |
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After seriously talking of forming an anti-BJP front in the elections to come, the Congress actions show a lack of interest in the proposed combine. The latest UP developments which saw the exit of former Chief Minister Mayawati, show that the Congress is yet to shed its anti-Samajwadi Party feelings. For one, the party refused to join the ruling coalition for the moment. The Congress has also sharply criticized Chief Minister Mulayam Singh Yadav for being soft on the alleged gangster Raju Bhaiya, and calling the former Minister Amarmani Tripathi, accused in the murder of a glamorous poetess, as the saviour of Uttar Pradesh, for voting with the confidence motion in the assembly. The Congress has stressed the point that it had played a role in the formation of the Mulayam Singh government.
It has been hardly a month when the Samajwadi Party (SP) and the Congress joined hands. Now there are signs that the two parties have begun to drift away from each other. Observers feel that the two parties have differences over Mulayam Singh Yadav’s relations with the BJP, the need for a coordination committee and a common minimum programme for the Uttar Pradesh Government. The two parties appeared to have buried the hatchet earlier this month when the Congress leadership shed its inhibitions and decided to support Yadav’s bid to form the government in Lucknow.
Yadav even gave the impression that he was making amends for having raised the “foreigner issue’’ vis-a-vis Congress chief Sonia Gandhi in 1999 by declaring on the floor of the State Assembly that the issue was settled as far as he was concerned. But the relations between the two parties have dipped after Yadav won the vote of confidence in the Assembly.
Observers believe that disturbed over reports of a covert understanding between the BJP and the SP, the Congress declined to join the UP Government, its fears compounded by Yadav’s refusal to break the BJP, despite the reported willingness of a number of BJP MLAs to cross over to his side. The Congress urged Yadav, instead to set up a coordination committee of all the supporting parties and to agree to a common minimum programme before it could consider his request to join the Government. Yadav has remained indifferent to both these conditions set by the Congress. “The allies agree with all the decisions taken so far. Where is the need for a formal arrangement,” he asked. Yadav has also dashed the Congress hopes of an electoral understanding, especially for the Lok Sabha polls, as a quid pro quo for its support in UP. He has ruled out the prospects for either a seat-sharing arrangement or the formation of a secular front with the Congress. Much to the Congress chagrin, Yadav has also remained non-committal on the issue of support for Sonia Gandhi’s candidature for Prime Minister.
The most glaring evidence of the drift in the relations between the two parties is the growing proximity between the Congress and the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP).
Most political observers put down the inability of the two parties to join hands to the clash of their long-term electoral interests, especially in UP. Both the Congress and the SP want to occupy the secular space, both parties would like to lay claim to the Muslim vote, and, by implication, the growth of one would certainly still that of the other.
The Congress expects Sonia Gandhi to be projected as the leader of a secular alliance, but the truth is few potential alliance partners are willing to endorse it. Mayawati may be heaping praise on Sonia Gandhi at the moment, but it is obvious why she is doing it. She is faced with the double problem of the collapse of her government in UP and CBI investigations into the Taj Heritage Corridor case, and is desperately looking for partners on the national scene. Former West Bengal Chief Minister Jyoti Basu would also plump for Sonia, but there are signs that he is at last reverting to a position long deserved: a has-been in national politics.
The state assembly elections will be an important augury for parliamentary elections coming up in 2004. If the Congress is unable to seal a formal alliance with likely coalition partners before Lok Sabha elections that gives an edge to the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) over any secular coalition in at least two ways - one knows who its leader is and who one is voting for as a prime ministerial candidate, and seat adjustments can be entered into to maximise a coalition’s chances. The NDA has held together for four years and looks unlikely to crack in the fifth, which certainly proves it can work - against which there is the unlikely prospect of Congress winning an absolute majority, or the unseemly prospect of attempting to cobble together some kind of ragtag coalition after election results are declared, argue analysts.
If what is worrying the potential Congress allies is the issue of Sonia Gandhi’s leadership, then it is time to acknowledge that even if the Congress continues to be hostage to a single family, its acceptance is by no means universal among its allies, and without them the Congress cannot have a realistic crack at power, say observers.
Stand on Babri mosque verdict
The Congress has made it clear that it is not happy at the letting off Deputy Prime Minister L.K. Advani by the Rae Bareli special court which decided to frame charges against Union HRD Minister M.M. Joshi and six others in the Babri mosque demolition case. It is the Congress stand that Advani’s role in the bringing down of the structure by kar sevaks (volunteers) cannot be minimized. The court view was that in the context of the conflicting evidence given by eyewitnesses on whether Advani egged on the mobs or tried to appeal against demolition, the benefit of doubt should go to the Deputy Prime Minister.
But the Congress has now asked Prime Minister Vajpayee to order the CBI to file a review petition on the court verdict discharging L.K. Advani “to secure ends of justice”. “The CBI must keep itself above controversy and be seen independent. It is expected to function according to law. It cannot work on whims or fancy. It should not only file a revision against the order of discharge of Advani but argue it diligently and forcefully”, senior Congress leader P.R. Dasmunshi told Vajpayee in a letter.
Releasing the letter at the AICC briefing, Dasmunshi contended that the CBI’s “departure” in the Rae Bareli court from its earlier submissions before the Lucknow court was “nothing but designed to protect the Deputy Prime Minister with an intention to give him clear passage through the diluted chargesheet”. Dasmunshi singled out the CBI for criticism saying the prime investigating and prosecuting agency should have placed all documents and material before the court on the “heinous crime” committed on Dec. 6, 1992. CBI’s different role of prosecution in the same matter in three different stages of argument, that is in Lucknow special court, High Court and Rae Bareli court is amusing. It is self contradictory , he said adding that law does not respect of personalities and the rule of law must prevail. “Be you ever so high, the law is above you”.
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