Results out, all parties look inwards

Soon, thereafter, the Congress hopes to persuade party president Sonia Gandhi to attend its State convention, which will deliberate on how to limit rebellion in the party and look ahead to 2000. Although the Maharashtra Congressis perhaps the only party which has something to write home about this time round, party leaders feel their goals are only half accomplished. The real test of strength is likely to come barely two years from now when the State faces an Assembly election at the turn of the century.

So the party is beginning right now : It has already served show-cause notices on several leaders, big and small, for going against the party line at the recent elections to the zilla parishads. It has also expelled a former MP for working against the party candidate in Nanded at the Lok Sabha elections, despite the fact that it won the seat.

“We mean business. We will not tolerate any one going against the party line,” said Maharashtra Pradesh Congress Committee general secretary Gurunath Kulkarni. And the party line is clear : No truck with the Sena, which means all informal arrangements with the latter to keep the BJP out of local self-government bodies as in the past are now called off. Ferociously secular is how it wantsto be seen in the future, say party leaders.

However, the Sena’s penchant to sup with the devil if it means any gains for itself while ignoring that which may accrue to its ally, is thus said to be behind the State BJP’s decision to go it alone in setting up a committee to probe the causes for its defeat. So far it has relied almost entirely on Sena supremo Bal Thackeray’s charisma to help it over the hump. But if that charisma shows signs of waning by the next elections, BJP leaders reckon it is time for some self-reliance. Moreover, according to sources in the BJP, their leaders are secretly convinced that they lost, and might lose again, if they allow the Sena sole charge of their campaigns in the future as well.

The SP for its part is keen to grow further roots in Maharashtra. So party president Mulayam Singh Yadav has decided that the resolutions passed by the national executive in New Delhi will be ratified by the general body in Mumbai. Among other things the SP will also review the status of itsrelationship with the Congress.

Says Hussain Dalwai, State SP president, who has undertaken tours to widen the party’s perspective in the State, “We should not be seen as part of a Congress-led alliance. We only had seat adjustments with the party. But we continue to be with the Congress when it means taking on the Sena-BJP.” Maharashtra, he acknowledges, is too crucial to be abandoned without a combined fight against the communal forces. “Together we can do a better job of licking the two parties,” he adds.