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First signs?

The battle for control over India’s oldest political party is, in that sense, not going to be fought and won from within. The vice-like grip one family has on the organisation will either successfully withstand or accommodate the so-called G-23 rebellion just as it did similar efforts at leadership change on earlier occasions.

First signs?

(File Photo: IANS)

The first signs of what may emerge from the ongoing churn in the Congress party are slowly but surely becoming visible. The departure from its ranks of Mr PC Chacko ~ a four-time MP from Kerala and former CWC member who headed the Joint Parliamentary Committee on 2G Spectrum when the UPA was in power ~ is far more significant than what many believe. As is his destination, the Nationalist Congress Party headed by Mr Sharad Pawar.

Astute observers of the state of play in the Congress reckon that Mr Chacko jumping ship is in many ways more significant than the switching of political sides by Mr Jyotiraditya Scindia, the other senior party leader who quit in recent times.

Given Mr Scindia’s family connections with the BJP, and the state where he has his base, the saffron camp was his only real choice. The same is true of other Congress leaders down the ladder in North India. But in many other parts of the country where scores of dissatisfied Congress activists and office bearers have non-BJP options including the NCP, YSR Congress, TRS, Trinamool Congress, BJD, Shiv Sena and even the JJP and JD-U (if they break with the BJP), the choice is clear.

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The battle for control over India’s oldest political party is, in that sense, not going to be fought and won from within. The vice-like grip one family has on the organisation will either successfully withstand or accommodate the so-called G-23 rebellion just as it did similar efforts at leadership change on earlier occasions.

The problem for Congress leaders with political heft who left the party in the past has been that they were reduced to regional players leading personality- centric political parties in their home states. Because of this limitation, none of these parties have been able to attract leaders who may well be seething inside the confines of the Congress.

Yet, the talk in political circles now is that Mr Pawar’s time may finally be here. So, what has changed over the past two decades since he led the ‘Amar-Akbar- Anthony revolt’ against Mrs Sonia Gandhi?

For one, the Congress is truly crumbling and entirely directionless. But it’s now not just a question of stemming the organisational atrophy; though it would take a near-miracle to achieve even that. The bigger issue is that the party’s ideological basis is non-existent today ~ a sad end to the original big tent party of Indian politics which understood that this is a culturally Indic nation while being a liberal, modern, secular state.

Of course, the NCP has its problems ~ the rampant corruption in the civil aviation ministry during UPA is still fresh in public memory as is crony capitalism in Maharashtra. But of all the Congress offshoots, the NCP is best placed to ensure they coalesce into the main Opposition. If Mr Pawar can, as it seems he has started to do, hammer out a reformist economic agenda while emphasising moderation on social issues and treating the BJP as a political adversary and not an enemy, it’s not at all inconceivable that Congress dissidents would join forces with him.

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