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Congress' challenge in Hyderabad

K.V. Prasad

At its plenary, the AICC will have to strike a balance between the pressure to expand and strengthen its pan-India presence and the sensitivities of its alliance partners.

As the 82nd plenary of the All-India Congress Committee approaches, the party faces the question: where does it go from here, politically and ideologically? Where the Congress goes depends on where it thinks it has been. The last plenary was held in Bangalore in 2001, where it departed from the Pachmarhi resolution to indicate it was prepared to enter into electoral or coalition arrangements with secular parties without compromising on its basic ideology. Three years later, the party was voted to power at the Centre through dexterously woven alliances. For the past 20 months, the Congress has been leading a coalition Government and formulating policies on the basis of the agreed roadmap for governance, the National Common Minimum Programme.

The Congress has reasons to be satisfied with the dramatic shift in political fortunes. At Bangalore, the party noted that it had been kept out of power in New Delhi for half a decade. It eventually remained out of power for eight years, the longest it ever spent in the Opposition. Obviously, those years made Congressmen a little more accommodating in dealing with other parties.

Juxtapose the bleak scene at Bangalore with the current scenario: the Congress approaches the Hyderabad session from January 21 to 23 with a spring in its step. Not just in New Delhi, the party is running governments in as many as 16 States. For the first time in years, it has Chief Ministers in five north Indian States — Jammu and Kashmir, Punjab, Haryana, Himachal Pradesh, and Delhi. The party is entitled to a sense of satisfaction. Yet it is acutely aware that missing from this impressive line-up is Uttar Pradesh, a State central to permutations and combinations for ruling from New Delhi.

The "karmabhoomi"

The Congress presence in Uttar Pradesh, to say the least, is weak. Its health in the neighbouring Bihar is not much better. Since the 1990s when `Mandal' altered the political architecture in the Hindi heartland, the party has been unable to make itself relevant to the masses.

It tried various combinations, including a short-lived electoral arrangement, but has not yet found a recipe to revive its political and electoral fortunes in Uttar Pradesh. This when its two most important leaders, party president Sonia Gandhi and heir-apparent Rahul Gandhi, were elected to the Lok Sabha from the State. Uttar Pradesh has always been the karmabhoomi of the Nehru-Gandhi family, and without regaining its hold there, the party's revival will remain incomplete.

Similarly in Bihar, the Congress abandoned its brave "go it alone" venture of the 2000 Assembly elections and adopted an approach in the last two polls that mortgaged its interests to its ally, the Rashtriya Janata Dal. But the two verdicts in 2005 have not lessened its dilemma.

The Congress swung the 2004 general elections its way by striking strategic alliances in Bihar, Jharkhand, Maharashtra, and Tamil Nadu. Popular discontent with the Telugu Desam Party in Andhra Pradesh provided additional help; in Karnataka it survived in a three-way fight. The Hyderabad plenary comes just months short of the elections in Assam, Kerala, Tamil Nadu, Pondicherry, and West Bengal, a position the Congress found itself in Bangalore five years ago.

The 2001 political resolution in regard to States going to the polls makes ironic reading now. For instance, the diagnosis then was: "In Tamil Nadu, the priority task of the Congress is to dislodge the unholy DMK-BJP combine. "

A political party does shift positions in tune with new developments. But at Hyderabad, the AICC will have to strike a balance between the urgency to expand and strengthen its pan-India presence and the sensitivities of its alliance partners. The Congress has to show the necessary flexibility to address the current situation while showing the dynamism to draft programmes to achieve the larger goal of organisational consolidation.

Hyderabad will present the last opportunity for the AICC for any course corrections before the next general election.

Considering Ms. Sonia Gandhi's preoccupation with managing the contradictions in the coalition and ensuring that the United Progressive Alliance Government delivers on the promises made, the party may not be willing to undertake another major change. It may find it expedient to defer hard decisions.

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