In go-it-alone mood, Cong set to battle it out
The current mood in the Congress is for ekla chalo (go it alone) sending out a clear message that the coalition experiment under the UPA at the Centre may not last long.
The party will fight the West Bengal Assembly elections in an alliance with the Trinamul Congress and with the Dravadian parties in the Tamil Nadu polls but in the cow belt it is all set to take on Mandalite parties and the BJP on its own.
In fact, the Congress has already made it clear it will fight the Bihar and Uttar Pradesh Assembly elections on its own despite that it has been out of power in these key states for over two decades. In Maharashtra, the mood to is for a post-poll alliance with the Sharad Pawar-led party if needed.
The message is loud and clear to Mr Mulayam Singh Yadav, Mr Lalu Prasad Yadav and Ms Mayawati.
Though the party officials are maintaining silence on how long the coalition experiment will last, the party strategy and actions are indicative of its future plans.
Currently, the Congress is sharing power with the NCP in Maharashtra and Goa and the National Conference in Jammu and Kashmir. It could have shared power in Tamil Nadu but the Karunanidhi government has not accommodated the Congress despite its dependence on the Sonia Gandhi-led party.
Former Union minister Vasant Sathe told PTI on Sunday: “There should be no repeat of the UPA experiment in next polls. We should not depend upon coalition politics for long. Parliamentary democracy is basically two-party system. Coalition concept is alien to parliamentary system,” the octogenarian leader, who had closely worked with Indira Gandhi, said.
He said that in a coalition, the ruling party has to depend upon too many groups and parties and therefore “you cannot carry out your policies and programmes”.
This is for the first time a senior leader has spoken publicly in favour of the party going it alone. In private, several leaders admit that coalition is necessarily a compulsion.
“In the 2014 polls, Congress should go on its own and for that Sonia Gandhi should start preparing right now. A new 20-point programme for the poor like the one launched by Indiraji will help the Congress win on its own,” he said.
Mr Sathe said that since Mrs Sonia Gandhi “for all practical purposes” has been the leader of the party and the government, she should look for ameliorating the lot of the poor, facing hardships due to price rise and joblessness.
Mr Sathe hailed the supportive role being played by All-India Congress Committee general secretary Rahul Gandhi for the Congress in reaching out to the poor.
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