New Delhi: The proximity of Assembly polls
in five states, including West Bengal and Tamil Nadu
notwithstanding, the Congress remains ambivalent on the issue
of alliances.
"Everything depends upon the situation in a particular
state", was the refrain of party General Secretary Janardhan
Dwivedi when asked by reporters the AICC`s stand on the
ticklish issue.
In reply to another question, he, however, said the
alliance with DMK would continue in Tamil Nadu.
Besides West Bengal and Tamil Nadu, Assembly polls are
also due in Assam, Kerala and Puducherry next year.
Party President Sonia Gandhi as well as Rahul Gandhi
had remained silent on the issue of alliances at the ruling
party`s just concluded plenary. The political resolution
adopted at the plenary had also skirted the issue.
Congress played a second fiddle to Mamata Banerjee`s
Trinamool Congress in West Bengal in the Lok Sabha polls last
year and there have been heated exchanges between the two
sides on the issue of alliance in the Assembly polls.
"This is a time for constructive action, including in
those states where we are in coalition", the Congress
President had said in her opening remarks at the Plenary which
also had strategies for the Assembly polls as one of its aims.
She only acknowledged the shock the party received in
the just concluded Assembly elections in Bihar where the party
went alone.
Her remarks that the party`s future will be shaped "not
by a magic wand or by any single individual", but its capacity
to work together as a team, was a signal that in the days
ahead charisma alone was less likely to work.
In the political resolution, the Congress merely said,
"We must ensure that we strengthen the party organisation to
continue to reflect a political will to craft both its own
future and that of the country, much like it did during the
freedom struggle and the decades that followed."
In states like West Bengal, Kerala and Tripura the Indian
National Congress emphatically rejects all attempts to
perpetrate a cycle of violence for political and /or electoral
advantages by political parties, the resolution said in
obvious reference to the Left parties.
Talking in generalities, the resolution said the
necessity of coalition politics at the central level does not
prevent party`s state-level workers from hoping and dreaming
of a larger political space wherever they may be and "we as a
party must be cognisant and supportive of their aspirations."
Every Congress worker and state party unit has a
responsibility to strengthen the organizational base of the
party, it added.
In Assam, the Congress is ruling with the support of a
Bodo party. But the AICC General Secretary Digvijay Singh had
recently said that no decision has been taken on the issue of
alliance with any party.
PTI
