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Congress session : The message

	August 30, 2004

The first one-day session of the All-India Congress Committee (AICC) on August 21 after the formation of the United Progressive Alliance (UPA), the first Congress-led coalition at the Centre” was significant in more ways than one. The AICC’s upfront acceptance of the inevitability of coalitions is a creditable advance, given the past record and resolutions of the party. The Pachhmarhi resolve of the Congress against coalitions has melted away. Obviously, the Congress has realised that it must lead the way in a coalition culture, if only to pre-empt being upstaged by the BJP and its allies.

That the BJP, though worsted electorally, remains, according to observers, a challenge at the political level is underscored by both Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and party President Sonia Gandhi launching a frontal assault on the Hindutva (Hindu activism) forces. On the one hand, this makes it plain that the offensive against the RSS and the BJP is not an individual effort by the likes of Human Resource Development Minister Arjun Singh but a concern of both the party and the government. On the other hand, it is also a subtle hint to Arjun Singh that any personal ambitions that may have actuated his anti-RSS campaign are unlikely to be realised in the prevailing order, where the Prime Minister has Mrs Gandhi’s whole-hearted support.

All of which points to the most important feature of the AICC: the primacy of the family. Mrs Sonia Gandhi calls the shots. The Congress remains a dynasty-centric party, unwilling or incapable of organisational reform to foster internal democracy beyond the minimum dictated by expedience.



BJP’s game plan

In a bid to keep the UPA Government under pressure on the “tainted” Ministers and Uma Bharti issues, the Bharatiya Janata Party has decided to launch a nationwide campaign.

BJP president Venkaiah Naidu, told presspersons that the campaign would focus on withdrawing the “politically motivated” case against Ms. Uma Bharti and demanding the resignation of the chargesheeted Ministers in the Central Government and re-installation of freedom fighter V.D. Savarkar’s plaque at the Cellular Jail in Port Blair, Andamans.



Concern of BJP allies

According to observers, the BJP’s success in getting the NDA’s endorsement on the twin issues of Savarkar and Uma Bharti may prove shortlived with growing resentment among its allies “ particularly the Janata Dal (United) “ on the manner in which the Opposition’s agenda is being hijacked by Hindutva concerns.

JD(U) leaders are particularly angry with their chief and NDA convener George Fernandes for playing along with the BJP without consulting anyone in the party. “There was no meeting of the JD(U) parliamentary party to discuss the strategy but George unilaterally endorsed the BJP’s decision to disrupt Parliament on the two issues,” a party leader said. At its two-day national executive from July 31, the JD(U) had passed a resolution to break ties with the BJP if it returned to hardline Hindutva. JD(U) sources said while the party was united in the campaign against tainted ministers, more so because all of them hail from Bihar and belong to the Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD), it did not share the BJP’s perception on either Savarkar or the Uma Bharti issue. Nor do JD(U) leaders Nitish Kumar, Sharad Yadav or Digvijay Singh share the BJP’s (and George Fernandes’) antipathy towards the Congress and Sonia Gandhi.

One reason for Fernandes joining hands with the BJP and the Shiv Sena over the Uma Bharti arrest is his animus towards Sonia Gandhi. While Fernandes continues to be bitterly opposed to the Congress, large sections of the JD(U) are keen to have a tie-up with the party in the coming Bihar Assembly elections, sources said. “If the Congress leaves Laloo (Railway Minister), we are ready to leave BJP. A Congress-JDU(headed by Union Minister Paswan) combine can defeat the RJD,” a JD(U) leader said. Elections in Bihar and Jharkhand are due early next year.

Other NDA allies such as the Trinamool Congress and TDP are also wary of backing an RSS-backed mass campaign on the National Flag or the Savarkar issue. Trinamool chief Mamata Banerjee did not attend Parliament session and her party went unrepresented at the NDA meeting. TDP leader Yerran Naidu, on the other hand, said while his party had agreed to “floor coordination” with the BJP on the Savarkar and Uma Bharti issues, it did not mean that it would join any nationwide campaign.



BJP determined

Inspite of the views of its allies, the BJP is determined to carry on its campaign. According to observers, it is too early to say which political party got the maximum political mileage out of the Uma Bharti case. Is it the Congress that is basking in glory over the party’s so called secular move? Or Bhartiya Janata Party that is proud of its commitment to nationalism (read Hindutva) ?

But the drama had the potential to attract everybody’s attention, disrupting Parliament and opening yet another phase of confrontation between the Congress-led UPA government and the Opposition.

It all began with the Karnataka Government’s decision to withdraw the revision petition case against Uma Bharti that pertains to her hoisting the Tricolour (National Flag) at the then disputed Idgah Maidan in Hubli on August 15, 1992 and making an “inflammatory” speech on that occasion. It is indeed interesting to note that the case has taken such a turn after more than ten years. Is it because the BJP has been busy these days harassing the Congress led UPA government over appointing tainted ministers in its Cabinet? Perhaps the Congress Party knew that this is right time and they should miss the opportunity to attack the Opposition with its own tool. The Congress was well aware of the fact that the BJP would not defend Uma Bharti as the step would weaken its own campaign against “tainted” Ministers. So it was quick to ask for her resignation. “Can a Chief Minister, against whom not only an arrest warrant has been issued, but who has been declared a proclaimed offender, continue in office ?” Congress media department chief Girija Vyas asked. The party insisted that the case against Bharti was ‘far more serious’ than the one against Jharkhand Mukti Morcha (JMM) chief Shibu Soren, whose resignation the BJP had demanded vociferously. Vyas said it was for the first time in the history of independent India that a Chief Minister was not only facing an arrest warrant, but was also a proclaimed offender.

But the BJP was quick to take political advantage out of this situation. Though in the beginning the party denied that Uma would not resign but soon it realised that it should miss this golden opportunity to show its commitment to the campaign against tainted ministers. Therefore Bharti resigned promptly. “To get arrested while being Chief Minister would have been an insult to the Constitution,” she said. And she made a virtue of necessity and has at the same time deprived the Congress of a stick to beat her party with. The party, according to observers, has regained some of the high moral ground through this `principled’ resignation.

The leader of the Opposition in the Lok Sabha, L.K.Advani has said in Parliament that when the NDA had demanded the resignation of ‘tainted’ ministers on the issue, it was argued that there was no precedent. Now that Bharti had quit, though the case against her did not involve any taint, the Centre should remove the `tainted’ ministers. He said the allegation against her related to hoisting of the Tricolour and there was nothing in it to call her tainted. What she did was exemplary and “it should be followed by others,” he argued.

Since the case involves the hoisting of the National Flag at the Idgah, the whole controversy has been given a patriotic colour. Bharti had declared a decisive battle against Congress President Sonia Gandhi for a dishonour to the Tricolour.

On the other hand, the Congress accused the BJP of trying to give a “patriotic twist” to the case against Bharti, saying the they should “refrain from dragging the Tricolour into a political controversy.” Party spokesman Anand Sharma rejected the contention that the issue was linked to the unfurling of Tricolour at Idgah in Hubli and said the cases were related to the violation of curfew and subsequent riots in which five persons lost their lives. He said the Karnataka Government had recommended withdrawal of cases but the sessions court did not allow withdrawal of two cases involving Uma Bharti.

The party dismissed the BJP’s demand for removal of ‘tainted’ ministers from the Manmohan Singh government, saying that the concerned ministers had been accused of certain offences which await judicial scrutiny. “Accused does not mean tainted. Till a verdict is pronounced, the presumption is that the accused is not guilty,” Sharma said.



Maharashtra goes to the polls on Oct 13

The Election Commission has announced one-day Assembly polls in Maharashtra and Arunachal Pradesh on October 13 and October 7, respectively. Along with the Maharashtra assembly polls, byelections to 41 Assembly seats and four Lok Sabha seats in different states would also be held on October 13. The term of the Maharashtra Assembly was to expire on October 20, and that of Arunachal Pradesh on October 12.

The 41 Assembly seats where bypolls will be held are: 12 in UP, four each in Gujarat and Jammu and Kashmir, three each in Nagaland, Punjab and West Bengal, two each in Andhra Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and Delhi, and one each in Assam, Goa, Himachal Pradesh and Manipur.

Three seats in Punjab (Ajnala, Kapurthala and Garshankar), four in Jammu and Kashmir (Batamallo, Pahalgam, Basohli and Akhnoor), two in Delhi (Rajouri Garden and Baljeet Nagar) and one seat in Himachal Pradesh (Guler) are among the 41 Assembly segments where byelections will be held along with the Maharashtra poll. He said the byelection for four parliamentary seats “ Mainpuri and Akbarpur (SC reserved) in Uttar Pradesh, one seat each in Bihar (Madhepura) and Karnataka (Bidar) “ would take place on October 13.

As the Election Commission announced the dates for Assembly polls in Maharashtra, Congress and Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) leaders met. The potential allies for the Congress and the NCP include various factions of the Republican Party of India, the Janata Dal (Secular) and the Peasants’ and Workers’ Party, though the PWP had withdrawn support to the Democratic Front government two years ago.

In the Shiv Sena-BJP camp, the two parties have already finalised seat-sharing. The Sena will contest 171 seats, while the BJP has got 117 constituencies. The arrangement, which has lasted almost a decade now, has not changed though the BJP continues to push for more seats. Seven seats from the saffron camp would also go to its alliance partner, the Shetkari Sanghatana of Sharad Joshi.

The Shiv Sena’s latest “hate figure” is Mani Shankar Aiyar. The Union petroleum minister became the Sena and the Bhartiya Janata Party’s target for his reported instruction to remove a plaque with Veer Savarkar ‘s thoughts inscribed at Port Blair’s Cellular Jail, where the freedom fighter was jailed from 1911 to 1924.

The issue generated considerable heat in Parliament. The Opposition has attacked Aiyar, accusing him of collecting money for the Chinese during the 1962 war. Aiyar, a former IFS (Indian Foreign Service) officer-turned Congress politician, strongly denied the allegation, dubbing it a ‘vicious campaign’ to defame him. The Shiv Sena brought the emotive issue into the public realm. A life-like statue of Aiyar was installed at Mumbai’s Shivaji Park for Shiv Sainiks to vent their anger. Sena chief Bal Thackeray kicked off the “jute maro” (throwing shoes) campaign by planting his chappal (a kind of loose footwear) firmly on Aiyar’s cheek. Later, other Sainiks, including former Lok Sabha Speaker Manohar Joshi, joined in the Aiyar bashing.