Bickering in Cong post poll debacle

Dinesh Manhotra
Tribune News Service
Jammu, May 26

The bickering in the Congress has intensified after the declaration of the Lok Sabha election results as some party leaders have stepped up attack on Jammu and Kashmir Pradesh Congress Committee (JKPCC) chief Ghulam Ahmad Mir for, what they alleged, 

propagating the secessionist agenda in the party.

Enraged over the party’s debacle in the Hindu majority areas of the Jammu province, a group of leaders have written to the party high command.

The Congress had contested five of the six Lok Sabha elections but failed to open its account. In the two parliamentary constituencies of the Jammu province, the National Conference (NC) and Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) had supported the Congress candidates to avoid the division of ‘secular’ votes.

“It is all due to the pro-secessionist approach of the top state leadership that the party’s base in Hindu-dominated areas got eroded in the parliamentary elections as people are equating the Congress with the NC and the PDP,” a top party leader told The Tribune on the condition of anonymity. 

The leader regretted that instead of pursuing a secular agenda, the party leadership had brazenly adopted a pro-separatist approach just to win a seat in Kashmir.

Although the Congress had failed to open its account in the 2014 Lok Sabha elections, the party candidates had secured a good number of votes from the Hindu-dominated Assembly segments in the plains of the Jammu region.

Sources said a group of Congress leaders convened a meeting on Sunday and passed a resolution against the JKPCC chief for failing to carry forward the ‘secular agenda’ in the state. 

“A copy of the resolution was forwarded to Congress president Rahul Gandhi and other senior leaders,” a source said, adding, “In the next week, Jammu-based party leaders will convene another meeting by involving all potential candidates who are thinking of contesting the Assembly elections in the state.”

The sources said the ‘second-line’ leadership, especially some Youth Congress leaders, had taken serious note of the pro-secessionist agenda being adopted by the state unit to keep the separatists and other groups in good humour.

“We have just started our political career but the communal and secessionist agenda being pursued by the party leadership will prove disastrous for the young leaders of the Jammu province,” a Youth Congress leader said.