Cong, minorities relationship cracking

NEW DELHI, AUG 11: Just when they should have been given a decent burial, old suspicions about the Congress' relations with minorities ha...

NEW DELHI, AUG 11: Just when they should have been given a decent burial, old suspicions about the Congress8217; relations with minorities have resurfaced, thus lending a touch of frost to the wary embrace the two find themselves in.

Yesterday8217;s first list of the Congress has only four Muslim candidates out of a list of 72, just over five per cent. And almost all the Sikhs come from the Punjab list, with just about one or two from constituencies outside Punjab. Enough to create a stir in minority communities.

The coming elections are being seen as the first in a long time, when both Muslims and Sikhs are expected to vote for the Congress in larger numbers than they did in the last few years, an anticipation based on the return of the Sikh and the Muslim vote in the last round of Assembly elections in Delhi, Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan.

Delhi was a telling example of the influence of the Sikh vote which ensured Congress victories in seats which they hadn8217;t won since the 1984 anti-Sikh pogrom in the Capitalfollowing Indira Gandhi8217;s assassination on October 31 that year. Likewise, Muslims began to show a return of the faith they had reposed in the Congress before the December 6, 1992 Babri Masjid demolition.

And in recent times, Congress president Sonia Gandhi has tried on many occasions to woo the minorities, regretting both the anti-Sikh riots and the Babri Masjid destruction on separate fora. Sonia has also attended conferences and other functions of both communities in larger numbers than her predecessors Sitaram Kesri and Narasimha Rao.

Thus, it was that the party was expected to take steps friendly to both communities. Instead, the last few weeks have seen an unpleasant resurfacing of old hostilities and suspicions. More so, as the Congress high command has exhibited a disturbing return to the earlier practice of saying one thing and doing another.

For example, Sonia has stressed repeatedly that minorities must be given their due share in the party hierarchy and in elected bodies as well. But instark contrast, the Congress Central Election Committee has been seriously considering the candidature of Sajjan Kumar and Jagdish Tytler, both former MPs who were accused of playing a role in the killing of Sikhs.

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The third leader in the troika, H K L Bhagat, too has been entrusted with a more serious responsibility, he is a member of the 150-strong Congress campaign committee for what is the last election before the end of the millennium. With broad hints from 10, Janpath, and a little help from the courts which have exonerated both Kumar and Tytler in Sikh-related cases, the Congress has narrowed down both names as the front-runners from Outer Delhi, the largest constituency in the country and Delhi Sadar, the heart of the Capital8217;s business district.