With the elections for the Bihar Assembly slated for next month, the Congress is in a real dilemma. The grand old party has agreed to a poll arrangement with its senior partner, the RJD, in the state, but simultaneously is unable to withstand the pressure being applied by the family of Lalu Prasad Yadav on seat adjustments. The problem of the Congress is that it has no organizational structure in Bihar, like in other areas, and the supreme irony is that though it has appointed six different people as the presidents of the state unit during the past decade, yet none of them has been able to declare their PCC bodies. The reason for their being scared is that if they constitute the PCC, those who have been left out would start demanding their resignation from day one.
On top of that, the general secretaries who have been made overall Prabharis of the state, also seem to be not fully equipped to deal with the complex situations that keep arising. There have been complaints against Krishna Alavaru, who has been handpicked by the high command and made the general secretary. The grouse of the party cadres, or whatever is left of them, is that he does not understand the nuances of politics and keeps introducing potential nominees who have had no role in the party in the past. His obsession with Dalit and OBC candidates has also irked many senior leaders.
There is no doubt that Rahul Gandhi’s Yatra and meetings in the state had huge traction and the gatherings were very well attended. The issue which arises is that without an organization to derive political dividends, the entire exercise is proving to be now futile. Rahul himself is missing from the scene when he was needed the most and there is complete confusion in the party since even Mallikarjun Kharge is not well and is unable to attend to his daily duties.
What is paramount is that Bihar is a state where castes and alignments make the major difference, and thus influence the final outcome. In the Congress, there is no one who has been entrusted with the job of ensuring that these alignments are sealed properly and the alliance partners do not bully the party into submission when the poll process has already commenced.
Lalu Prasad Yadav and his family are known for using all kinds of tactics. Way back in 2004 when after the UPA victory, Sonia Gandhi decided for whatever reasons, not to be the Prime Ministerial nominee, Lalu Prasad Yadav surprised everyone by declaring that the PM nominee would be now decided by the UPA and not by the Congress, which was the single largest party in the coalition.
At this point, Makhan Lal Fotedar, who was Indira Gandhi and Rajiv’s political advisor stepped in and informed the RJD chief in no uncertain terms, that the prerogative of appointing the leader of the Parliamentary party in the Lok Sabha would be that of the Congress, since it was the single largest party. He or anybody else in the UPA, would not have any role in this. Lalu understood and kept silent after that.
The point is that there is no one like Fotedar or Ahmed Patel, who ran the party on behalf of Sonia Gandhi for so many years but had a way of getting things done when they mattered. The current Congress does not have such people and such leaders and most of those entrusted with the job are sycophants who do not have either the domain knowledge of the state they are appointed to or do not have the courage to take on either friends or opponents.
The Congress has been raising the issue of “Vote Chori”. The question which arises is that does the party have the wherewithal to prevent it? Vote Chori takes place only when a party does not have an organization and has no one at the polling stations to detect the wrongdoing. The party does not have sufficient strength to detect and counter the opponents at the polling station. So why lament?
Instead, the Congress over the past few years should have focused on appointing polling agents on every booth in the state or at least in most of them. Either those who are running the party do not understand the basics or if they do, they have done nothing about it. The Congress has also claimed that there was “Vote Chori” even in Karnataka which has been ruled by it. Does that imply that though the party may have won there, there were not sufficient workers at the grassroots level to have prevented any such happening if indeed such a thing had taken place?
There are two types of views that are emerging from within the Congress. One is that the Congress should have contested fewer seats in the alliance since in the absence of any organization, it was bound to lose most. The more seats it contests, the more seats it would lose is what is being stated. The second opinion is that it should have fought on all the seats with the longer aim of rebuilding the party in Bihar. This way it would have re-asserted its influence and if the need would have arisen subsequently, supported the RJD in a post-poll alliance. These are the issues for the party high command to deal with.
Regardless of the outcome, the plight of the Congress shall be unchanged. Between us.
