Imminent Cong split in Gujarat torments Kesri camp

Even Sitaram Kesri loyalists concede that the fallout of a Congress split in Gujarat will be difficult to contain in the aftermath of the knockout the party received in Uttar Pradesh. It will press panic buttons in an already demoralised Congress. “Anything could happen then,” remarked a senior party MP.

The Congress president has been advised that he should form an alliance with the Rashtriya Janata Party (RJP) in Gujarat and enter the government in order to keep his flock together. Sensing the mood of the legislators, Arjun Singh, who had gone to Gujarat recently as an observer along with Meira Kumar, recommended in his report that the party should not foreclose this option. But both Ahmed Patel and Madhavsinh Solanki are opposed to it, and the Congress is for the moment “waiting and watching”.

The BJP has managed to create a hype about the possibility of a Congress split at the Centre. Though BJP leaders are in touch with some Congressmen here, it is the dissidents inside the Congress who are more active and want to use this opportunity to settle scores with Kesri.They are roping in all those party MPs who are resentful of with the Congress president for one reason or another.

But it is not easy to split the Congress Parliamentary Party (CPP). Unlike UP, the BJP does not have a Kalyan Singh in the saddle here. No one can be certain that the President of India will give another group a chance to form a government instead of opting for dissolution of the Lok Sabha. And yet it is also true that a change is taking place in the psyche of the Congress MPs.

So far Congress members have tended to shirk away from a split because they have seen the fate of those who have left the party. Sharad Pawar, who quit in the late 70s, had to return to the party and cool his heels for two to three years before he was readmitted. The examples of Arjun Singh and ND Tewari are too recent to be forgotten. But UP has created a deep despondency in the Congress today and MPs can be seen wringing their hands and asking each other how they can avoid the impending doom that stares them in the face. They do not see any signs of a leadership which can save the sinking ship, and some may want to risk a leap to what looks to be a safe landing ground.

Kesri’s conciliatory gestures in the last three days are an indication that the moves to split the Congress here are more serious than the party leadership would like to admit. The Congress president’s willingness to enter the coalition government of IK Gujral, provided the UF issues such an invitation, is a shift from the party’s old stand.

The UF’s response has been far from ecstatic. It had debated and rejected the option of power-sharing with the Congress around the time when Gujral took over as Prime Minister. “There is no change in that position,” Communist Party of India (CPI) secretary D Raja said here today.

To try and stem the tide of resentment growing against him, Kesri has also retained all those MPs who were All India Congress Committee (AICC) joint secretaries. He included Jitendra Prasada in the party committee to oversee UP affairs in what was obviously a sop after having sought to sideline his vice president. He invited Narasimha Rao’s former troubleshooter Matang Singh for parleys.