RS polls: Cong struggles to keep flock together

As the Congress fights an increasingly insurmountable battle to keep the party together, the Rajya Sabha biennial polls scheduled for Saturday is all set to further dent the party’s image. The party high command is grappling to keep the MLAs together in the politically significant states of Uttar Pradesh and Haryana, where senior Congress leaders are locked in close contests.

In Uttar Pradesh former Union Minister Kapil Sibal is being challenged by BJP-backed independent Preeti Mahapatra, wife of a Gujarat-based industrialist. In Haryana the party is divided, despite a diktat from the high command to support Indian National Lok Dal-backed independent RK Anand, a former MP and controversial lawyer. Party general secretary Madhusoodan Mistry is camping in Lucknow as personal emissary of party vice-president Rahul Gandhi to ensure that all the 29 Congress MLAs vote for Sibal.

There are reports that nine of the 29 Congress MLAs could cross-vote and support the BJP- backed independent candidate. This would still not harm the prospects of party candidate Kapil Sibal, who is understood to have got the support of eight MLAs from Ajit Singh’s Rashtriya Lok Dal, a few independents and smaller parties and seven spare votes from Mayawati’s BSP. However, observers indicate that if these nine MLAs were to walk out and join the BJP it would considerably weaken chances of the Congress in the forthcoming assembly polls.

In Haryana a more intriguing battle is being fought within the Congress despite the party not having pitched any candidate in the poll. A section within the state Congress led by industrialist and former MP Navin Jindal has forced the party to oppose candidature of media baron Subhash Chandra, who is in the fray as a BJP-backed independent. Though both Chandra and Jindal belong to Bhiwani the two corporates have been involved in a long out drawn battle.

Jindal and leader of Congress legislature party Kiran Chowdhary, who too belongs to Bhiwani, have persuaded the leadership to support INLD-backed independent RK Anand. The duo on Friday managed to convince the party high command to support Anand despite grave reservations voiced by powerful state leaders including former chief minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda, Randeep Singh Surjewala and Kuldeep Bishnoi. The triumvirate wanted the party to abstain from voting as going with INLD would harm Congress in the long term.

In Haryana assembly, INLD has 19 seats and the Congress 17. With the support of a few independents, the possibility of RK Anand turning Chandra’s applecart cannot be ruled out. However, despite the diktat from Congress president Sonia Gandhi, who was empowered to take a call by the legislature party, preventing crossing voting from Congress ranks would be a big challenge.

Caught in a bind, the high command decided to go against Chandra to reinforce its ranks in Rajya Sabha with ‘powerful’ members to “keep a check” on the government, a strategy which the party has followed so far in the upper house. As part of this plan the party is bringing in former union ministers P Chidambaram and Jairam Ramesh from Maharashtra and Karnataka respectively.

However, its strategy in Haryana could backfire as in the case of Chhattisgarh and Tripura. While in the former, state’s best known party leader Ajit Jogi has decided to walk out and form a new party, in Tripura six of the 10 party MLAs crossed over to the Trinamool Congress.