Congress shall move on, shed alliance baggage

Has the Congress become a gutless wonder? Even after Rahul Gandhi’s ‘Bharat Jodo Yatra’ which injected a new energy into the party? And after the Karnataka Assembly win which invigorated the party further and gave it confidence that the BJP could be taken on with a right plan? Answers to these questions are necessary if the party seeks to regain its past glory. Maharashtra defies logic by any yardstick.

What is the Congress plan to revive itself in every State because it is here that it needs to shine if it seeks Rahul baba to become the Prime Minister – a long cherished dream of ‘The Family’ and the party. Look at the political mess called Maharashtra where 48 Lok Sabha seats are up for grabs. After the NCP split in the State with Ajit Pawar once again shifting his loyalties to the BJP defying his uncle and ‘Guru’ Sharad Pawar, the political space has been queered for everyone – for those in power as well, their rivals. It was anyway a calculated move on behalf of the BJP leadership, and it preferred the turmoil and the uncertainty accompanied by it.

Just as the earlier Shiv Sena, the Sharad Pawar camp in the NCP, too, will now be keeping itself busy with the legalities and also trying to convince people about its indispensability to Maharashtra. Ajit Pawar seems to have stepped out of Sharad Pawar’s ‘chatra chaya’ for good. (We will come to know of this anyway if not and also whether it’s all not a ploy of the wily old war horse).

Instead of trying to encash the ‘ego clashes’ in the now unwieldy BJP-Shinde Sena-Ajit NCP concoction, the Maharashtra Congress is busy staking claim to the Leader of Opposition status. Is this what it should have been doing? Does it understand that people must now be fed up with the failed experiment of Shiv Sena-NCP-Congress alliance and also with the directionless BJP-Shinde Sena-Ajit NCP alliance?

The very alliance between Sena and the Congress and NCP itself was immoral and it should not have been allowed by the Congress. But, it sought power in a financially rich State for its own gains. The Congress high command does not seem to be happy with the Maharashtra Congress moves and has asked them to ‘wait and watch’. There is nothing for the party to wait and watch as the electoral dynamics get concretised sooner in favour of the BJP if the field is left open. Unless the Congress wakes up to reality and seeks the pole position – by even breaking away from the Pawar hold – it won’t be in a position to convince the minority voters of its utility to them.

Despite being in a position to move on, the party awaits an unwarranted consent from the other anti-BJP parties. It faces a similar predicament in Bengal, too, and Kerala is no better. It is a national party and need not worry about its national friends which have become its rivals in some states. The grand old party has to be more assertive and also declare that it is willing to sail without any alliance baggage. Only then will the regional satraps treat it with due respect. Time is ripe for it to do so.