On Rahul shoulders, state-wise poll pacts

Aditi Tandon

Tribune News Service

New Delhi, July 22

Sounding the bugle for the 2019 General Election, the extended Congress Working Committee (CWC) on Sundday authorised party president Rahul Gandhi to forge state-specific alliances with like-minded parties to defeat the BJP and backed him as the face of the joint Congress-led Opposition alliance.

The highest decision-making body of the Congress, after a five-hour meeting, passed a resolution authorising Gandhi to form any committee for election preparations, including one to consider pre and post poll alliances in states.

As the CWC stamped state-specific alliances, sources said former minister P Chidambaram spoke of how with smart pacts the Congress-led Opposition could reach 300 seats with the Congress alone winning 150 from 12 states where it is dominant. From these 12 states, the Congress today has 48 Lok Sabha MPs.

Rahul Gandhi, who chaired his first CWC meeting after assuming party presidency on December 16 last, reiterated the narrative he built by giving his rival, Prime Minister Narendra Modi, a headline grabbing hug in the Lok Sabha on Friday.

Congress media head Randeep Surjewala said, “Mr Gandhi urged the CWC to pledge they will not leave any stone unturned to defeat the BJP in 2019. He said the BJP was assaulting individuals and institutions alike. The Congress president while saying that “we alone can fight BJP’s injustice” defined party ideology as one that spreads love, shuns hatred and thrives in inclusion. He said the first duty of the Congress is to fight for farmers, and then the marginalised, women, minorities, SCs and STs.

On alliances, Surjewala stressed the state-specific bit, adding that Congress interests won’t be sacrificed. With TMC chief Mamata Banerjee and BSP president Mayawati positioning themselves as Opposition veterans, the Congress declared that alliances cannot be formed on absolute stands.

“Real-time negotiations will be held. Alliances can’t be formed on rigidities and absolute stands. Mamata Banerjee comes from a Congress pedigree. One statement by her cannot be taken as a final posturing,” Surjewala said after the meeting of the extended CWC, which, apart from the just appointed full 51 members, comprises sitting CMs, state chiefs and legislature party leaders.

UPA chief Sonia Gandhi had set the tone for discussions in the morning when, speaking after her son Rahul Gandhi and former PM Manmohan Singh, she said “the countdown for the BJP government has begun”.

“A reign of despair and fear has been heaped upon India’s deprived and poor. PM Modi’s rhetoric shows his desperation, reflecting that the reverse countdown of the Modi Government has begun,” Sonia Gandhi noted, while Manmohan Singh rejected “the culture of constant self-praise and jumlas of the PM as against a solid policy framework for driving the engine of growth”.

The former Prime Minister claimed that to match UPA’s GDP growth, the NDA would have to post a growth rate of over 10 per cent this year.  He also challenged the PM’s “we will double farmers’ income by 2022 claim”, saying for that to be done, agricultural growth rate must be 14 per cent. “That’s nowhere,” Singh added.

To counter the BJP, the CWC identified the following issues to build mass movements across India — agricultural distress, lack of jobs for youth, slackening economy, poor internal and external security, atrocities on SCs, STs, OBCs and women and dilution of institutional integrity.

Rahul Gandhi, for his part, addressed the assembly saying Congress needs both the youth and experience and urged everyone to work together with 2019 in mind.

‘No absolute stand’

"Real-time negotiations will be held. Alliances can’t be formed on rigidities and absolute stands. Mamata Banerjee comes from a Congress pedigree. One statement by her cannot be taken as a final posture" Randeep Surjewala, Cong media head