The Congress core group met here on Friday against the backdrop of the controversial issue of a caste-based census and political developments in West Bengal and Andhra Pradesh, especially growing tension between the Congress and Trinamul Congress and reported dissension within the Andhra Congress.
The core group, consisting of party chief Sonia Gandhi, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, finance minister Pranab Mukherjee, defence minister A.K. Antony, home minister P. Chidambaram and the Congress president’s political secretary Ahmed Patel, met for over an hour.
“It was a general meeting... briefing meeting,” authoritative sources said on Friday night.
The Union Cabinet, which met here on May 26, referred the census issue to a Group of Ministers (GoM) to examine the modalities of such a head count, evolve a consensus and submit its report at the earliest, according to the sources.
But in less than 24 hours of the Cabinet meeting, minister of state for home Ajay Makan opposed the demand and started building opinion against it within the party through an “open letter” to young MPs.
This has angered the backward caste and OBC leaders, including MPs in the party who are suggesting that the census issue needs to be discussed in the Congress Working Committee. “After Telangana, Naxal attacks, the Women’s Reservation Bill, caste-based census is the major issue on which the party has to take a stand. We should not leave it to the government. This defensive approach can go against us,” they feared.
But AICC officials clarified that the party is in favour of wider discussions within the party. Asked about a forum for it, they said: “It can be discussed in regional conferences of the party, PCC.”
Replying to a question on whether this issue had earlier discussed in the AICC sessions after 1990, party officials said they did not remember. In West Bengal, the rift between the Congress and the Trinamul Congress is widening after the two allies bitterly fought the civic body polls against each other, ignoring the Left as their common political adversary.
After the polls, a blame game began.
As for Andhra Pradesh is concerned, Congress MP Y.S. Jaganmohan’s Odarpu Yatra is not going down well in the party.