Tension among Congress, allies threatens UPA unity

New Delhi: The UPA appears to be disintegrating with the Congress becoming “uncomfortable” with allies, the NCP in Maharashtra and the National Conference in J&K  ahead of state Assembly polls in these states.

The DMK, Trinamul, LJP, TRS and others have already quit the UPA, which was formed to check “communal forces” from coming to power at the Centre in 2004. Now, the NCP and the National Conference are the two key partners left in the UPA.

The Congress came to power at the Centre through the coalition route under the banner of the UPA. But it had ruled 10 years due to the crucial “outside” support of the Samajwadi Party, BSP and the Left.

While the Trinamul is not keen on reallying with the Congress after winning 34 LS seats, the priority of the AIADMK (37) and the BJD (20) is to safeguard their own interests. Hence, they won’t play the Opposition’s role in Parliament.

The Congress, which won 44 LS seats, had appealed to the non-NDA parties for floor coordination in Parliament but nobody has responded so far. This is leading to the Congress’ isolation at the national level.

But the Congress’ Maharashtra unit appears to be following the line of its West Bengal counterpart, which is to confront its ally. Congress president Sonia Gandhi and vice-president Rahul Gandhi wanted to keep CM Mamata Banerjee in good humour with the calculation that this would help both the Trinamul and the Congress in West Bengal in the general election. But they failed.

In Maharashtra, chief minister Prithviraj Chavan perceives the real threat to the Congress will be from the Sharad Pawar-led NCP rather than the main Opposition Shiv Sena-BJP combine. Therefore, his entire strategy is focused on how to check the NCP in the state Assembly polls.

Mr Chavan has accepted “moral responsibility” for the Congress’ defeat in the Lok Sabha polls as the party won merely two seats in the state. But party insiders are asking what it means, “Soniaji and Rahulji had offered to resign in the CWC meeting on moral grounds but Prithviraj is not following them.”

But why blame Mr Chavan when other Congress CMs, like Bhupinder Singh Hooda, Harish Rawat, and Virbhadra Singh, are refusing to resign despite the party winning one seat in Haryana and failing to open its account in Uttarakhand and Himachal Pradesh.

Meanwhile, former CM and current Leader of the Opposition in the Rajya Sabha Ghulam Nabi Azad said a decision on any pre-poll alliance in Jammu and Kashmir will be taken by the high command, indicating that the issue is “open”.

According to an agency report from Srinagar, Mr Azad had said, “I cannot say with whom we will ally. Like the National Conference has said that the party will decide, the Congress will (also) decide, the workers will decide, and the final decision will be taken by the Congress high command.”

Mr Azad, who met Opposition PDP patron Mufti Muhammad Sayeed a few days ago, said, “Of course, we did discuss politics, but we did not talk about any alliance for the Assembly elections,” he said.