Farmers Movement Archive

Has Maharashtra Congress failed to capitalise on advantage?

A year after forging alliance with the Shiv Sena, along with the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) to form the government in Maharashtra, the Congress’s state unit sees an opportunity to regain its lost ground. However, the party organisation seems to be lacking in its efforts to regain ground. The Congress’s performance in the government, too, has been lacklustre, observers believe. After bagging 17 seats in the 2009 Lok Sabha from the state, its tally dropped to two seats in the 2014 general elections. It further reduced to a single seat in the next general polls. Likewise in the Assembly elections, the Congress came down to 44 seats in 2019 from its tally of 82 seats in the 2009 state elections. Its worst performance was in 2014 when it won just 42 seats in the state. Its tally in Vidhan Sabha had never dropped below 50 in the state’s 14 Assembly elections, where the grand old party was formed 135 years ago. Party workers and leaders were demoralised and did not expect any good to happen. Just ahead of the Lok Sabha and Assembly polls last year, its prominent leaders such as Radhakrishna Vikhe Patil and Harshavardhan Patil defected to the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) for greener pastures. In 2019 state polls, the party managed to retain its seats, but was pushed to the fourth position, with the NCP winning 12 seats more than the Congress. Then came an offer from the Sena and the NCP to join hands to form government in Maharashtra. State Congress leaders convinced the national leadership that joining the coalition government would give them a chance to regain lost ground and rebuild the party organisation in Maharashtra. However, one year later, this does not seem to be happening. The only benefit the Congress got is that its legislators did not join the BJP. A senior NCP minister, making his observations, said, “The ministers from the Congress hardly have any impact in their respective departments, as compared to the ministers from the NCP and Sena. The blunder by energy minister Nitin Raut from Congress on the excessive electricity bills is expected to cost the government dear. Its other ministers, including relief and rehabilitation minister Vijay Wadettiwar and medical education minister Amit Deshmukh could have performed better during the natural calamities (the flood and Cyclone Nisarg) and the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic. The party also lacks coordination among its own ministers.” Former chief minister (CM) and current public works department (PWD) minister Ashok Chavan recently said in an interview that Raut should have restrained from making announcements of waiver from excessive bills. He had to take a u-turn after the state decided against any such waiver. Political analyst Pratap Asbe said, “The party should have better coordination with its other two allies and must also understand that it has an opportunity to gain the lost glory.” Maharashtra Congress chief and state revenue minister Balasaheb Thorat refuted the claims that the party is in slumber. “The decision about reducing the stamp duty has helped in the real estate sector’s revival and we had record registrations of properties. As far as the electricity bills are concerned, the cost of waiver was between Rs1,000 and Rs2,400 crore, which was beyond capacity for the state exchequer to bear. We have better coordination between the three ruling parties and raising concerns over the share from the budgetary allocations could not be termed as clashes.” Congress leaders feel that they had held effective agitations over the farm laws recently and have been pushing for state’s own law to negate the ‘anti-farmer’ provisions in the central laws. The party has also decided to focus on regaining power in local bodies, which has been the strength of its base in rural parts of the state. After 2014, the Congress had lost power in many district councils, municipal corporations and other local bodies. In terms of the corporators in the district council, the party had slipped to the third position. It now aims to regain the councils. The state leadership also believes that power helps in maintaining control of the cooperative sector. As many as 27 of the 34 district councils and 15 of the 27 municipal corporations will go into polls in the next two years. Thorat said any political party’s ultimate aim is to gain power, as it helps strengthen the party base and empower the workers. “We will benefit in the district council and municipal corporation elections to be held in next two years because we are in power in state,” he said. After Congress’s poor show in the Assembly polls in Bihar, especially in the Muslim-dominated Simanchal, the Maharashtra BJP claimed that the grand old party had to face defeat owing to its alliance with the Sena in Maharashtra. There are questions being raised if the party will face a similar reaction from the Muslim voters in Mumbai in the upcoming BMC elections. “I don’t think that results in Bihar elections had anything to do with the alliance in Maharashtra. In fact, Muslims are happy that Sena has fallen apart from BJP. This will help the Congress,” said Asbe.

Hindustan Times

30-11-2020

City