Congress indecision is driving smaller parties away, ‘Mahagathbandhan’ a waning dream

Congress President Rahul Gandhi | PTI

After BSP, MP’s Gondvana Gantantra Party has also decided to ditch the Congress. Its alliance with the SP could eat into Congress votes.

New Delhi: The Congress has been dilly-dallying on alliances in poll-bound states for too long now, and is driving smaller regional parties into tie-ups of their own, which may come back to haunt the grand old party.

After Mayawati’s Bahujan Samaj Party, now the Gondvana Gantantra Party has also decided to ditch the Congress in Madhya Pradesh — a further blow to its plans to dislodge the BJP, which has been in power for 15 years.

And it’s not just in MP. Even in Rajasthan and Chhattisgarh, smaller parties are abandoning the call for a ‘Mahagathbandhan’ with the Congress to halt the BJP juggernaut, and either going it alone or tying up with each other.

‘We can’t wait forever’

Hira Singh Markam, chief of the GGP, said his party was tired of waiting for the Congress.

“They (Congress) are taking too much time to decide… The elections are around the corner. We can’t wait forever,” he told ThePrint.

Markam said the GGP had already forged an alliance with the Samajwadi Party, and was looking to tie up with the BSP as well.

“We have asked Akhilesh Yadav (SP president) to mediate on our behalf, and he is reaching out to the BSP. We are hopeful that the BSP will come on board.”

Though the GGP, which has influence in the tribal areas of Madhya Pradesh, did not win any seats in the 2013 assembly polls — its overall vote share was just one per cent — an alliance with BSP and SP could eat into the Congress votes.

In the 2013 elections, the BJP had won 165 seats in the 230-member assembly with a vote share of 44.48 per cent, while the Congress’ 36.38 per cent vote share brought it only 58 seats. The BSP won a vote share of 6.29 per cent, while the SP got 1.25 per cent votes.

Objections to specific seats

A senior Madhya Pradesh Congress leader, who did not want to be identified, conceded that the delay in finalising an alliance with the GGP had driven it to the SP.

“Ideally, the decision should have been taken three months back. There were some issues related to seat sharing where we could not reach a consensus. But we are still open to having an alliance with the GGP,” the leader said.

Congress sources said it had begun talks with the GGP in April. “At that time, GGP was OK with getting 10 seats. But the problem arose when it demanded the Amarvara assembly seat in Chhindwara (MP Congress chief Kamal Nath’s Lok Sabha constituency). Nath refused to let go the seat to the GGP,” a source said.

Similarly, an alliance with another small tribal party, the Jai Adivasi Yuva Shakti, could not be sealed because the Congress refused to give it the Kuksi assembly seat. Sources said this was due to an objection raised by former Madhya Pradesh CM Digvijaya Singh.

Same story elsewhere

In Rajasthan, seven socialist and Communist parties — SP, Janata Dal (Secular), Rashtriya Lok Dal, CPI, CPI(M), CPI(ML) and the Marxist Communist Party of India (United) — have formed the Rajasthan Loktantrik Morcha (RLM).

The parties have an almost negligible presence in Rajasthan, did not win a single seat in 2013, and their overall vote share was a mere 1.5 per cent. But political experts say they can affect the prospects of Congress in some 25 seats where the victory margin in the last assembly polls was less than 3,000.

Arjun Deta, state unit president of the JD(S) and member of the RLM steering committee, said this alliance was also in talks with the BSP for a tie-up. “We have reached out to the BSP and will finalise a deal soon,” he said. “Nobody has reached out to us from the Congress.”

In Chhattisgarh too, the BSP has forged an alliance with Ajit Jogi’s Janta Congress Chhattisgarh (Jogi).

This phenomenon extends to states like Maharashtra, which aren’t even going to the polls this year. Asaduddin Owaisi’s All India Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen, which hails from Telangana and is establishing a presence in Maharashtra, has tied up with the Bharipa Bahujan Mahasangh led by Dr B.R. Ambedkar’s grandson Prakash Ambedkar for next year’s Lok Sabha and assembly polls. The alliance, called the Bahujan Vanchit Aghadi, could impact the Muslim and Dalit vote banks.

Another small party in Maharashtra, the Republican Party of India which has its roots in Ambedkar’s Scheduled Castes Federation, is talking of an alliance with the BSP.

The BSP, on its part, has already sealed an alliance with the Jat-dominated Indian National Lok Dal in Haryana, changing the caste calculus (Dalits form 19 per cent of the electorate).

Will it cost the Congress?

Political pundits admit that it is too early to say anything on the potential Mahagathbandhan for the Lok Sabha elections, or what shape it will take. In states like Rajasthan, where Congress is in a strong position, it is not too keen to cede ground to regional parties, who are looking to protect their own interests.

“A clearer picture will emerge only after this round of assembly elections. Right now, smaller parties are looking at just their self-interest, while the Congress will only go in for an alliance if it is advantageous,” said political scientist Sudha Pai.

However, Sanjay Kumar, director of the Centre for the Study of Developing Societies, feels that the Congress’ indecision will diminish its prospects in MP, Rajasthan and Chhattisgarh.

“If the Congress is not keen to form alliances in the state elections and work on a grand alliance for the parliamentary polls, I don’t think it will work. The party should have formed an alliance early to give confidence to the voters,” Kumar said.

“The Congress is still working in its old mode — that it is a big party, and that smaller parties should take the initiative.”