Congress needs to ensure its voice in the Upper House is not diluted

Perspective

 By Venkatesh Raghavan

The recent suspension of 12 Rajya Sabha MPs that include legislators from the Congress, Trinamool Congress (TMC), Shiv Sena and the Left Parties owing to their unruly conduct in Parliament’s winter session has stirred up a hornet’s nest. The Congress and other Opposition legislators who were suspended are staging a sit-in in protest against the move. The Upper House witnessed increasingly intransigent posturing from both the ruling dispensation and the Opposition cadres. While Chairman Venkaiah Naidu insisted on an unconditional apology from the MPs over their misconduct, the opposition ranks were unconvinced about the reasons cited for the said suspension.

The forthcoming year will witness elections to several vacant seats in the Rajya Sabha. The worries of the Congress leaders currently centre on treading cautiously to ensure that the party’s voice in the Upper House does not get diluted. The young Turks in the Congress including Rahul Gandhi are learning the hard way that both the old guards from within their Party and opposition leaders from other political parties are disinclined to patronize their school of thought. In fact, the Congress after suffering electoral reverses in several of the state elections in addition to being the target of mass defections that resulted in the saffron league usurping power in states like Madhya Pradesh will in all probability be fighting a lone battle. The latest mass defection from the Congress is to the TMC.

The recent bid by the Congress to stir up popular opinion against the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) at the Centre and in poll bound states by focusing on issues like price rise, increasing woes of the farming community besides massive unemployment figures as a build up to the commencement of the Parliament’s winter session met with mixed responses. In several places the agitators under the umbrella of Jan Jagran Abhiyan movement courted temporary detentions besides arrests at the hands of the local police. Though the massive build up was not as well-received as anticipated, senior Congress leaders were of the opinion that the campaign will pick up momentum well in time for the polls slated in several of the states.

The problem cited by leaders from within the Congress and other Opposition Parties is that Rahul wants all decision-making to rest centralized in his hands. After the spate of defections that rocked the grand old Party in Bihar and Gujarat, Uttar Pradesh too has witnessed a similar pattern. To stem the defections that got accentuated by the exit of Jyotiraditya Scindia along with his band of followers from Madhya Pradesh a think-tank of senior Congress leaders have been put in place to plan and strategize for the future.

The BJP that has continuously been benefiting from its palpable “horse-trading” ventures in several of the states is learnt to be in a plotting mode to accommodate most of the Congress veterans from Madhya Pradesh, leaving aside just Digvijay Singh and Kamal Nath. The rising tide of disgruntlement within the Party as well as Rahul Gandhi’s failed attempts at uniting the opposition ranks has ushered in a sense of urgency that leaves the Congress camp both flustered and frustrated.

To sum up, the Congress is likely to go it alone in most of its forthcoming poll battles. While pollsters across the country have started viewing both TMC and AAP as a ‘B-team’ of the BJP, the challenge it will pose to the Congress might well be that of its very survival.