Wake up, grand old party: Regional parties do not add up to a pan-Indian whole. Opposition desperately needs a Congress revamp
June 18, 2021, Pavan K Varma (PV) https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/blogs/toi-edit-page/wake-up-grand-old-party-regional-parties-do-not-add-up-to-a-pan-indian-whole-opposition-desperately-needs-a-congress-revamp/ -- It is sobering to remember that even in its shrunk state, Congress is still the principal opposition in states as far apart as Kerala and Assam... Even when reduced to just 52 seats in the Lok Sabha in the 2019 parliamentary elections, it garnered 12 crore votes (BJP got 22 crore) and 20% of the electoral vote share.
see https://youtu.be/wyiqOG5aKoE?t=829 where Shekhar Gupta (SG) tells why Congress is the only other horse -- 20% of the Congress is solid, so even if it increases to 25%, it will make a big difference. But it must be remembered that the Gandhi family is critical to the Congress party.
Comment: So someone will have to devise a way in which they are there, but they dont surround themselves with a coterie or isolate themselves from the rest of the power groups in the erstwhile Congress. For this the Congress as a whole (including G26), and in particular the Gandhi family, will have stop falling prey to machinations of the right wing and the mainstream media, by buying into the narratives as well as becoming transparent about their plans. For this the different Congresses would also need be transparent.. and take an accommodative stance.
Back to PV: Strong regional parties in Kerala, Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, Odisha, and West Bengal constitute 164 parliamentary seats.
Congress is directly posited against BJP in MP, Gujarat, Rajasthan, Punjab (where the Akali Dal is a factor), Chhattisgarh, Haryana, Uttarakhand, Himachal Pradesh and Karnataka (where the JDS is present too). These states account for around 150 seats. Here Congress Strike rate was 16% in 2014 to even lower in 2019 < SG: https://youtube.com/embed/wyiqOG5aKoE?start=423&end=70 >
PV: (big) If – Congress were to genuinely revamp itself, then, in conjunction with anti-BJP regional parties, and an entry in UP and Bihar, it could give BJP a run for its money in 2024.
Comment: Upto now that the mainstream media has been asking the Congress to make adjustments with the other parties. This usually runs into problems as each one is afraid to subsume their identities to the other.
Thanks to Prashant Kishore meeting with Sharad Pawar, there is speculation that the regional parties can be shown how they can form a solid block, based on federalism issues.. like GST, COVID, Elections schedules, planning and advisory bodies, central v/s state agencies, capture of institutions like governorships, judiciary, Human Rights and Caste institutions.
Such a formulation itself will switch around 4% of the votes in their own states to them, in 2024 as people dont want to "waste" their vote. Somehow they need to counter the narrative -- State me Hum, Centre me Modi. They also need to counter the "double engine" threat, by forming a solid opposition to centralisation of decision making.
So all in all, I think the Prashant Kishore exercise to highlight a decentralised, federal alternative, can lift issues to a higher plane.. and offer a more acceptable choice before the people.
Further, such a formulation will automatically give "Congress" more votes in the State where the Congress experiences a direct fight with the BJP . Unfortunately we will have spoil sports like in Punjab, and perhaps Odisha, even some parties in Up and Bihar, who have to taken a vigorous stand against the Congress in their states.
As Prashant Kishore has emphasised earlier, you need a face and a concrete programme which is presented to the public at least two years in advance, and not just six weeks before elections.
< https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IldCA4JLehw Unboxing with Prashant Kishor | What it takes to plan, execute and win an election Nov 15, 2018>
Unfortunately, the mainstream media has made us believe that only a strong centralised face will work. Vajpayee's dictum of "coalition dharma" is projected a personal trait, which only greats like him can carry. The events of the past 7 years has shown us that when you have a single centralised face, it has to vanquish opposition usually using undemocratic force. Also the constituency that supports it, feeds on so called "master-strokes" most of which take us away from democratic norms of functioning.
So an alternative which checks extreme concentration of authority and arbitrary power needs to be projected, and shown to be viable. ( Maharashtra for example).
Editorial With Sujit Nair: Does Prashant Kishor Have A Solution For The TINA Factor? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nJc5O4wNkZM According to Nair, Rahul Gandhi, Sharad Pawar, or even Mamta are not really seen as a viable alternative to the current dispensation. But there was one, in the UAPA model -- a viable alternative where the popular face and PM face of the alternative is bifurcated. You need a PM who can put his foot down, unlike Manmohan Singh, and the popular face which can keep the various factions together.
The alternative may not show a single face, but a bi-polar option, which itself is projected as desirable in order to check the extreme concentration of authority and arbitrary power. It must demonstrate that its opposition to Modi is backed up by a federal democratic and decentralised imperative. Here again we need to go to Prashant Kishore, who says that you need time to plan and execute the viability of the alternative. You need to set the agenda which the alternative will deliver to the masses..< see https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IldCA4JLehw
Unboxing with Prashant Kishor | What it takes to plan, execute and win an election >
Today, there are some concrete areas where the regional parties and Congress can prove how they can work together: a) COVID b) post COVID economic recovery, c) Migrant Labour, d) SMEs e) Using employment guarantee to target economic recovery and engaging educating youth in these spans through a special employment scheme for economic recovery projects. f) special inter-caste (or rather multi-caste) development schemes/services/enterprises at local and district level to break the cynical use to caste divisions in elections. After all you will recall that Modi started his campign by promoting the Vibrant Gujarat Narrative, after the internal polarisation of Gujarat!
Mahua Moitra in her interview with Shoma ChaudhuryL https://youtube.com/embed/qgTN5tShwGA?start=2589&end=2705 ( 2 mins ) says that to take on the BJP, the idea that you need a national party to take them on, gone. You can have a conglomeration of regional parties, where in each state the local party takes on the BJP. The Congress will be in four states. New notion in Indian politics..
आखिर राहुल गांधी की पालटिक्स है क्या? । RAHUL GANDHI । CONGRESS Jun 19, 2021 कांग्रेस नेता राहुल गांधी आज 51 साल के हो गए .आज भी बहुत से लोग उनकी पालटिक्स नही समझ पाते हैं ,क्या है उनकी पालटिक्स ?आज यही समझेंगे जनादेश चर्चा में शाम सात बजे . Saurabh Bajpai Rahul G has come up strongly on Communalism issue and the issue of Crony capitalism.. but the campaign of "pappu overshadowed.. Shravan Garg:
Before 2014 politics was nationa wide,pro poor .. petrol prices, inflation etc were big issues. Now politics is retricted to cow belt.. of ten states. Rahul G does not know how to do this politics. Congress does not have a good hindu leadership.. nor hs it projected hindu leadership.. also at the time of Manmohan Signh Rahul played the role of opposition. But now outside the govt he is not able to do opposition politics. a he is not able to do cow belt politics.. While he is in the congress, he is not in it..
Harjinder Singh: RG in response to "appu" tried to estabish himself as intelletual.. and not as a peoples man..
Sompal Shastri: https://youtube.com/embed/B2l8z6yQdjQ?start=1708&end=1984 Jun 13, 2021