Big Shoes, Small Shoes

Congress president Sonia Gandhi may be gung-ho about her party entering into electoral alliances, but some leaders have deep reservations on the issue. In the long term, they believe, alliances will hurt rather than help the Congress. Although in a small minority, they claim to reflect the concerns of grassroot workers.

CWC member Pranab Mukherjee says "the very concept of coalition arises from anti-Congressism" and is a "transitory phase" in Indian politics. However, he has bowed to the majority, pro-alliances verdict of the CWC, which is now the official party line. In fact, apart from Mukherjee and Nawal Kishore Sharma, no CWC member has opposed alliances. Two-thirds of MPs believe the Congress cannot emerge as the single largest party without a leg-up from regional forces.

The same cannot be said of party workers, says Congress leader Salman Khursheed. "If you speak with party workers in UP, the majority will be against an alliance with the SP," he maintains. After fighting each other tooth and nail in three elections, it will be hard to join hands. "It will take time to overcome the latent animosity between them. There's no social contact at the ground level," adds AICC office-bearer Viswajit Prithvijit Singh.

In Maharashtra, where the Congress-NCP alliance is seen as a foregone conclusion, leaders from the western part of the state have similar concerns. "During a series of conclaves for Congress workers, the view was overwhelmingly against an alliance with the NCP," points out MP Prithviraj Chauhan.

The Bihar PCC feels the same way vis-a-vis the RJD. Its chief Ram Jatan Sinha points out that in the recent elections for 24 local body council seats, the Congress won eight on its own, whereas the RJD was offering merely four if the two had fought together. "We can win 35 Lok Sabha seats on our own," says Sinha, who believes both the upper castes and Muslim are returning to the Congress fold.

In UP, it isn't yet clear how much the Congress could gain from an alliance and whether the SP's backward vote is transferable. The AICC's analysis of the 1999 elections shows that if the Congress and SP votes were added, the former would have won in 19 more assembly segments (it won in 38) and the SP would have won in 81 more segments. On the other hand, its analysis of the 2002 assembly elections, which saw the Congress vote-share plummeting, showed that its loss was the SP's—and not the BJP-BSP's—gain.

The Congress vote is elastic, yo-yoing between 6 per cent to 16 in the last five years. "This latent votebank can be encashed if the voter takes the party seriously and that's not possible if it is reduced to an insignificant junior partner," says Khursheed.

Agrees AICC office-bearer Devendra Dwivedi: "The primacy and centrality of the Congress should be maintained in any alliance. For the Congress to emerge as the single largest party in the Lok Sabha, a sufficient share of seats are needed".