Congress aims for stronger control in Maharashtra elections after facing setback in Haryana.
New Delhi: Although the Congress high command had shown less authority in Haryana assembly elections where the state leadership had conducted most of the important activities, the top leadership of Congress, including Rahul Gandhi is taking keen interest in Maharashtra assembly elections where the Congress is an alliance partner within the Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA).
Since the Congress has no supreme leader in Maharashtra and the power is distributed among several leaders, the high command thinks that it can, without any resistance from top leaders in the state, assume authoritative role in order to lay down a better strategy for the grand old party in the state.
A senior Congress leader at the AICC said, “In Haryana, all the in-house surveys of the Congress failed. The state leadership run by Bhupinder Singh Hooda had almost full control of the state cadre. But in Maharashtra, we are alliance partners and the other partners will keep the high command in the loop while making decisions. Or we can say that the Congress’ central leadership will be directly involved in negotiations and decision making. So, we have less probability of having inflated feedback.”
A Congress leader holding an official position in the state said, “The hard hitting decisions that could come along may start by dropping the sitting legislators, which the Congress thinks may have developed anti-incumbency in their respective constituencies. There are around 10 sitting legislators (out of 44) from Congress who can be dropped from the list. This doesn’t happen very often in Congress. BJP drops anyone it thinks has developed anti-incumbency. But the same is not the case with Congress.”
Maharashtra Congress leaders admit that the charged up atmosphere among the grand old party workers has significantly waned after the party was unable to tap the anti-incumbency sentiment of a decade against the BJP in Haryana, resulting in the party’s loss. However, according to party insiders, the silver lining in Maharashtra is that the high command is showing greater interest in resolving as many problems as are possible within the Congress in the state and within the alliance before the state goes for elections.
A senior Congress leader said, “The Haryana loss is a big setback for the party. It has broken the momentum of the party which was created by winning 100 seats in the Lok Sabha elections. Congress was of the view that we will win the northern state, which would strategically help the Congress weave the narrative of ‘waning Modi factor’, but they failed to win in Haryana. Now, they will have to make greater readjustments to their approach towards the Maharashtra elections.”
There was a positive anticipation from the Congress high command, including Rahul Gandhi, about the Haryana assembly elections as the information of landslide victory was fed over to the top leadership at the centre.
A senior Congress leader said, “During the ticket distribution, it was known that the ex-chief minister of Haryana, Bhupinder Singh Hooda, is having full-fledged powers to decide over who gets the ticket. It was also known at the same time that Rahul Gandhi is not showing any significant involvement in the organisation’s decisions over the state issues. It was Hooda who would call the shots. Moreover, the Gandhi scion was also unhappy with a few leaders in the state, which led to this disastrous performance.”
Another reason, according to the senior Congress leader, is that Haryana did not have block and district presidents for around 12 years, as they are necessary and help in conveying the policy of the party to the public. But the same is not the case with Maharashtra election, as the Uddhav Thackeray-led Shiv Sena, Sharad Pawar-led Nationalist Congress Party, and Congress party combined have a challenging front against the Mahayuti alliance at the organisation front as well.