New Delhi: The Congress is facing massive defections in Maharashtra and Haryana and is on the verge of extinction in these two states. Political pundits say that the lack of leadership, infighting among the party’s state leaders and poor performance in the elections are the main reasons behind such a situation.
The political scenario for the Congress in Maharashtra is alarming as around 10 of its legislators have so far switched either to the Bharatiya Janata Party or to the Shiv Sena. The Sunday Guardian has learnt that as many as 15 more Congress MLAs are talking to either of the two ruling parties in the state.
Maharashtra will hold Assembly elections in September-October. In the 2014 Assembly elections, the BJP won 122 seats out of the state’s 288, while the Shiv Sena won 63. The Congress and the NCP bagged 42 and 41 seats, respectively.
The big names among those who have left the Congress include former Chief Minister Narayan Rane, seven-term lawmaker Kalidas Kolambkar, veteran Congress leader Manikrao Gavit’s daughter Nirmala Gavit and Congress spokesperson Priyanka Chaturvedi.
A similar situation is being faced by Sharad Pawar’s Nationalist Congress Party (NCP). The NCP is witnessing a spate of resignations of its leaders as well as massive defection of its legislators. The prominent names who have left the NCP include Shivendrasinh Bhosale, Vaibhav Pichad, Sandip Naik, Sachin Ahir and Chitra Wagh, among others.
Political experts see infighting and the leadership crisis as reasons behind the defections of MLAs from NCP and Congress.
Maniandra Nath Thakur, who teaches at the Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) told The Sunday Guardian: “The Congress is not being able to emerge from repeated defeats in elections. The party has failed to resolve the leadership crisis and deal with the infighting, which has led to this exodus. States like Maharashtra and Haryana, where the Congress could not re-emerge as a strong contender, have almost ruined it prospects. These two states will go to the polls in less than 60 days. The ruling parties in both the states have started their poll campaign, but the Congress is yet to form any alliance in any of these two states.”
“Mass defections happen only when there is a lack of leadership, apart from infighting among the party’s state leaders. Poor performance in the recent general elections has also made several party leaders wary of their political future,” Thakur said.
However, NCP leader and spokesperson Majeed Memon told The Sunday Guardian: “The Congress-NCP alliance will together contest the Assembly elections and for that, a formal seat-sharing formula is under discussion; soon, leaders from both the parties will reach at a consensus.”
The Congress is also not being able to complete the alliance selection process. Vanchit Bahujan Aaghadi (VBA) chief Prakash Ambedkar wants a clear direction from the Congress on alliance formation. The VBA has set a deadline of 31 August and has asked the Congress to take a decision on alliance formation. However, the ground reality shows that the Congress may not take a decision in a hurry and may wait for the VBA to lower its demand for seats.
While Ambedkar is demanding 44 seats, many Congress leaders think that the demand is unreasonable. The Congress might not offer more than 15 seats to VBA.
Data from the recently concluded Lok Sabha elections shows that the VBA bagged a significant vote share in some crucial seats in Maharashtra, which damaged the Congress and NCP. If the Congress had tried to get the VBA on board, the Opposition would have won five to seven more seats in the state. The BJP-Sena alliance won 41 of the state’s 48 Lok Sabha seats.
The exodus from Congress and NCP started after Maharashtra’s Water Resources Minister Girish Mahajan’s statement that at least 50 MLAs from the Congress and NCP were in touch with the BJP.
A similar statement was made by the newly-appointed state BJP chief, Chandrakant Patil, who said that they are expecting a spate of resignations of Congress and NCP MLAs in the coming days.
Similarly, in Haryana, there is no end to the infighting in Congress between two factions—one led by the former Chief Minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda and another by Ashok Tanwar, who is the party’s state president. Hooda has almost gone to the extent of breaking from Congress and is set to launch his own party.