NEW DELHI: On the second day of the 85h Congress plenary at Raipur, Chhattisgarh, the party made it clear that it was not going to support the idea of a “third front” in the run-up to the 2024 general elections.
The party, in one of the multiple resolutions presented on Saturday, said that “the emergence of any third force will provide an advantage to the BJP/NDA” and asked “like-minded” parties to follow its lead in its fight against the Bharatiya Janata Party.
This is likely to come as a premature death of the political dreams of several regional leaders including Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar and Telangana’s K. Chandrashekar Rao who are trying to emerge as the leader of the combined opposition.
“Unity of secular and socialist forces will be the hallmark of the future of the Congress party. Congress should go all out to identify, mobilise and align like-minded secular forces. We should include secular regional forces who agree with our ideology. There is an urgent need for a united opposition to take on the NDA on common ideological grounds. The emergence of any third force will provide an advantage to the BJP/NDA,” the party said in a resolution.
Among other “doubts” that were addressed during the first two days of the three-day plenary, which ends of Sunday, was the party’s decision to go for the process of nomination rather than election to choose the members for the all powerful Congress Working Committee (CWC). Former party president and party patriarch Sonia Gandhi also indicated that she was retiring from party politics. When she became the party president for the first time in 1998, the Congress was in power in the three states of Madhya Pradesh, Odisha and Mizoram. Today the party is in power in two, Chhattisgarh and Rajasthan.
According to party leaders, the majority of senior leaders who are close to the Gandhis, were of the view that the election for the CWC should be held post the May 2024 general elections.
Among the senior leaders who were pushing for the idea of having an election were former Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Digvijaya Singh and former union minister Ajay Maken. They perhaps felt only those leaders who were mass leaders and could win elections on their own, should be a part of the CWC.
The last CWC elections were held in 1997 when Sitaram Kesari was the Congress president. No elections were held either under the tenure of Sonia Gandhi or under Rahul Gandhi.
According to a top leader, the general consensus that emerged during the 47-member Steering Committee meeting was to defer the CWC polls till the 2024 elections so that the party could focus on the larger goal of defeating the BJP-led alliance rather than concentrating on defeating each other.
The number of permanent members of CWC was also increased to 35 from 25. It was also decided that the party now would have 50% reservation across All India Congress Committee (AICC) and the Pradesh Congress Committee (PCC) posts for Scheduled Castes, Scheduled Tribes, and Other Backward Classes . In the CWC, 50% seats would be reserved for SCs, STs, OBCs, minorities, youth and women.
Any sitting Congress Prime Minister, former Prime Ministers and former president of the party would automatically become a member of the CWC. As per this rule, former PM Manmohan Singh and Rahul Gandhi and Sonia Gandhi will automatically become a member of the CWC.
All the senior leaders, who addressed the Congress delegates, estimated to be around 15,000 who had come from across the country—including Sonia Gandhi and Kharge spoke strongly against the BJP government, accusing it of indulging in actions that had damaged the country socially, democratically and economically. Manmohan Singh and A.K. Antony could not attend the plenary because of health reasons.
As part of the 58-point nine-page political resolution, which was presented by party leader Abhishek Manu Singhvi, it was stated that the Congress should initiate immediate discussions with 15 like-minded opposition parties and form a “constitutional and legal alliance” to move the Supreme Court against the alleged misuse of probe agencies by the Centre. Singhvi further stated that the opposition parties must jointly announce that whenever there was a change of government at the Centre, a commission would be set up to investigate any misuse of the probe agencies and the role of all officers and bureaucrats who were prima facie party to such misuse would be investigated and appropriate action taken against them. He further suggested that whenever there was a change of government at the Centre, existing laws on electoral bonds and anti-defection law should be changed to prevent electoral malpractice and attempts to topple elected governments. He also asked like-minded parties to come together to resist the attempts being made to control the judiciary.
Former Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister and state Congress president Kamal Nath—who is leading a 99-member team from Madhya Pradesh including Digvijaya Singh—while presenting the economic proposal, spoke on what he called three key issues that the country was facing, unemployment and threats to the country’s culture and Constitution. The “international resolution” was presented by former union minister Salman Khurshid.
