Ambitions of state leaders prevent Cong from moving towards Oppn alliance

By Saiyed Moziz Imam Zaidi
New Delhi, March 12 State politics has prevented the Congress from moving towards alliance and a missed chance was witnessed on March 10 when BRS organised a one-day hunger strike in the national capital.

The Congress chose to remain absent despite supporting the issue of Women Reservation Bill and claiming credit for passing it in the Rajya Sabha.

Except the Congress and some other parties, BRS, SP, RJD, RLD, PDP, NCP, AAP, CPI(M), CPI and Shiv Sena (Uddhav) participated.

In Telangana, the Congress is at loggerheads with the Bharat Rashtra Samithi (BRS) and trying to make space for itself. While the state was carved during the UPA regime, the political beneficiaries were TRS in Telangana and YSRCP in Andhra Pradesh.

The Congress lost both the states badly, which was one of the states from where Congress got the maximum number of seats in 2004 and 2009 general elections.

Kavitha, though praised Sonia Gandhi for pushing the Women Reservation Bill during the UPA's tenure, criticised the party for its "arrogance" on the issue of alliance, and added that the Congress "should be a team player".

She had said that she had spoken with Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge and general secretary K.C. Venugopal sent a representative to the protest but no one turned up.

Though she had invited 18 political parties, including the Congress to join the one-day hunger strike to press the demand for the Women Reservation Bill.

Not only in Telangana the party has issues with Trinamool Congress in Bengal, which sends a bulk of 42 Lok Sabha MPs. The BJP has a clear edge over the Congress here, but the party has not able to tie up with the Trinamool and is with the Left parties.

Similarly when eight opposition parties wrote a letter to the Prime Minister over the arrest of Manish Sisodia, the Congress was a noted absentee and some of its leaders like Sandeep Dikshit went to the Delhi L-G for investigation into the snooping issue.

Nine Opposition leaders, including Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal wrote to PM Modi on Manish Sisodia's arrest and said that it will be cited worldwide as an example of a political witch-hunt and further confirm what the world was only suspecting India's democratic values stand threatened under an authoritarian BJP.

The letter has signatures of SP leader Akhilesh Yadav, BRS's K. Chandrasekhar Rao, NCP's Sharad Pawar, Maharashtra ex-CM Uddhav Thackeray, West Bengal CM Mamata Banerjee, J&K's ex-CM Farooq Abdullah, Punjab CM Bhagwant Mann.

The Congress weakened gradually after 2014 is being elbowed out by the regional players and no one wants to give space. Even in the biggest state like Uttar Pradesh, Akhilesh Yadav and Mayawati have not indicated to align with the Congress yet.

The CPI(M)'s Sitaram Yechury said that the Centre has been using government agencies as political weapons and violating the constitutional system. He added that the BJP says that leaders who claim to be innocent should answer the Enforcement Directorate (ED). He stated that all the leaders who have been summoned to appear before the ED, have done so and cooperated in its inquiry by answering the questions asked.

The Left is also living in a dilemma as it is opposed to the Congress in Kerala and in alliance with it in Tripura. In West Bengal, the Left and Trinamool can't get along. So political compulsions in the state has so far prevented the opposition from coming on at one platform.

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