After former Chhattisgarh Chief Minister Ajit Jogi, it was the turn of Congress general secretary Digvijaya Singh to pitch for a reunion of the Congress parivar along the lines of the merger of the Janata parivar.
Welcoming the coming together of the various constituents of the erstwhile Janata Dal on Monday, Singh said parties which were born out of the Congress like the Nationalist Congress Party, Trinamool Congress and YSR Congress should also evolve a similar arrangement with the parent party to put up a united fight against the Bharatiya Janata Party.
“Whoever believes in Nehruvian and Gandhian thought and philosophy should certainly come together to fight communal forces,” Singh said. He was, however, quick to point out that this was his personal view and did not necessarily reflect the party’s official position.
Ironically, Singh’s bete noire Jogi had spoken along the same lines in an interview to Scroll.in last month. Speaking about the Congress party’s future plans, Jogi had remarked:
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Although there is no official move in this direction, a number of senior Congress leaders have voiced similar views in private conversations after the party’s humiliating defeat in last year’s general election. The Congress footprint, it is argued, has shrunk drastically and it does not have strong regional satraps to shore up the party in the states. Under these circumstances, it is felt, it would be a good idea to join forces with erstwhile colleagues as they all have the same ideological moorings but had fallen out because of personal differences.
NCP chief Sharad Pawar had left the Congress and set up his own outfit to protest against a person of foreign origins – Sonia Gandhi – being projected as the party’s prime ministerial candidate. Mamata Banerjee floated the Trinamool Congress after she quit the Congress as she believed the grand old party was not serious about battling the Left parties in West Bengal. Jaganmohan Reddy had walked out of the Congress in a huff when the party failed to make him Andhra Pradesh chief minister after his father YS Rajasekhara Reddy died in an air crash.
In the case of NCP, the Congress has sent several feelers to Pawar over the years suggesting that a merger would be a good idea since the issue of Sonia Gandhi’s foreign origins was invalid after she refused to accept the prime minister’s post in 2004.
This talk gained currency after the NCP and Congress joined hands to run a coalition government in Maharashtra for three terms while Pawar joined the United Progressive Alliance government at the Centre. The two parties also contested elections together to ensure that their combined vote share kept the BJP and the Shiv Sena on the margins in the western state.
Nobody's eager
Pawar had even assured a senior Congress leader in 2009 that a merger would be in place for the 2014 Lok Sabha elections but backed off last year on the plea that the grand old party was on the wane. The two parties broke off their alliance in last year’s Maharashtra assembly election resulting in their mutual decimation.
If a Congress-NCP merger appears difficult, the coming together of the Trinamool Congress and the Congress seems impossible. Trinamool chief Mamata Banerjee has emerged as a leader in her own right, having established her party as the main political force in West Bengal. The Congress, on the other hand, is nearing obliteration as its cadres are shifting allegiance to the Trinamool Congress.
Although Jaganmohan Reddy came out poorly in the 2014 assembly election in Andhra Pradesh, he will be reluctant to share the opposition space with the Congress, which has no presence in the state after it was wiped out in last year’s poll by an electorate angry at the creation of a separate state of Telangana.
Having set up their independent outfits, Pawar, Banerjee and Reddy would not like to forgo their freedom and submit themselves to the “high command” culture of the Congress. Most importantly perhaps, they would not like to work under Rahul Gandhi, who is slated to take over as Congress president.
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Welcoming the coming together of the various constituents of the erstwhile Janata Dal on Monday, Singh said parties which were born out of the Congress like the Nationalist Congress Party, Trinamool Congress and YSR Congress should also evolve a similar arrangement with the parent party to put up a united fight against the Bharatiya Janata Party.
“Whoever believes in Nehruvian and Gandhian thought and philosophy should certainly come together to fight communal forces,” Singh said. He was, however, quick to point out that this was his personal view and did not necessarily reflect the party’s official position.
Ironically, Singh’s bete noire Jogi had spoken along the same lines in an interview to Scroll.in last month. Speaking about the Congress party’s future plans, Jogi had remarked:
“Just as the various erstwhile Janata Dal constituents are getting together…we should do the same. Whoever thought Nitish Kumar and Lalu Prasad Yadav would come together again. Similarly, we should have alliances with the Trinamool Congress, the Nationalist Congress Party and YSR Congress. After all, these parties were born out of the Congress fold. We should forget the past and come to whatever kind of arrangement we can with these parties. If today, all four of us come together, we will have a sizeable number of MPs in the Lok Sabha and will be able to make a big impact in Parliament. It is in our interest to come together if we are to face the kind of polarisation the BJP is trying to bring about. At the same time, we will have the advantage of strong regional leaders.”
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Although there is no official move in this direction, a number of senior Congress leaders have voiced similar views in private conversations after the party’s humiliating defeat in last year’s general election. The Congress footprint, it is argued, has shrunk drastically and it does not have strong regional satraps to shore up the party in the states. Under these circumstances, it is felt, it would be a good idea to join forces with erstwhile colleagues as they all have the same ideological moorings but had fallen out because of personal differences.
NCP chief Sharad Pawar had left the Congress and set up his own outfit to protest against a person of foreign origins – Sonia Gandhi – being projected as the party’s prime ministerial candidate. Mamata Banerjee floated the Trinamool Congress after she quit the Congress as she believed the grand old party was not serious about battling the Left parties in West Bengal. Jaganmohan Reddy had walked out of the Congress in a huff when the party failed to make him Andhra Pradesh chief minister after his father YS Rajasekhara Reddy died in an air crash.
In the case of NCP, the Congress has sent several feelers to Pawar over the years suggesting that a merger would be a good idea since the issue of Sonia Gandhi’s foreign origins was invalid after she refused to accept the prime minister’s post in 2004.
This talk gained currency after the NCP and Congress joined hands to run a coalition government in Maharashtra for three terms while Pawar joined the United Progressive Alliance government at the Centre. The two parties also contested elections together to ensure that their combined vote share kept the BJP and the Shiv Sena on the margins in the western state.
Nobody's eager
Pawar had even assured a senior Congress leader in 2009 that a merger would be in place for the 2014 Lok Sabha elections but backed off last year on the plea that the grand old party was on the wane. The two parties broke off their alliance in last year’s Maharashtra assembly election resulting in their mutual decimation.
If a Congress-NCP merger appears difficult, the coming together of the Trinamool Congress and the Congress seems impossible. Trinamool chief Mamata Banerjee has emerged as a leader in her own right, having established her party as the main political force in West Bengal. The Congress, on the other hand, is nearing obliteration as its cadres are shifting allegiance to the Trinamool Congress.
Although Jaganmohan Reddy came out poorly in the 2014 assembly election in Andhra Pradesh, he will be reluctant to share the opposition space with the Congress, which has no presence in the state after it was wiped out in last year’s poll by an electorate angry at the creation of a separate state of Telangana.
Having set up their independent outfits, Pawar, Banerjee and Reddy would not like to forgo their freedom and submit themselves to the “high command” culture of the Congress. Most importantly perhaps, they would not like to work under Rahul Gandhi, who is slated to take over as Congress president.
