Congress floundering in quest for alliances

A week after passage of the Telangana Bill in Parliament, senior Congress leader Digvijaya Singh said a merger with the Telangana Rashtriya Samiti (TRS) was being finalised. Late on Monday, the TRS made it clear it was not interested in any merger with the Congress and was even mulling over the idea of a pre-poll alliance. Earlier that day, Janata Dal (United) chief Sharad Yadav had snubbed Congress claims of a possible alliance in Bihar.

The Congress, after 10 years in power, is floundering in its search for political alliances in the run-up to the Lok Sabha polls.

The contrast has become even more stark as the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-led National Democratic Alliance is attracting political parties with every passing day, while the count of the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance (UPA)'s political allies is dwindling. The BJP, under the leadership of its prime ministerial candidate Narendra Modi, looks set to shed its pariah status, with Lok Janshakti Party (LJP) chief Ram Vilas Paswan, earlier a trenchant critic of Modi joining its ranks.

With polls kicking off early next month, the Congress has only managed to stitch up its alliance with its existing partner, the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) in Maharashtra. The Congress will contest 26 and the NCP 22 seats of the 48 MP seats in the fray.

The Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) in Tamil Nadu, part of the UPA in its first term, parted midway in its second stint over disagreements on the Sri Lankan Tamils issue. Although the Congress is keen to now partner, the DMK is reportedly spurning overtures. Recently, DMK supremo Karunanidhi raised eyebrows when he described Modi as a "friend."

The Trinamool Congress (TMC) in West Bengal and its supremo, Mamata Banerjee, have minced no words in making it clear it was not keen on doing any business with the Congress. The TMC had quit UPA-II over disagreements with on foreign direct investment in retail.

But the rot had set in much earlier, with frequent outbursts from UPA allies for not being consulted and being "taken for granted." Long-time ally NCP, which runs a coalition government with the Congress in Maharashtra, had in 2012 as well as in January this year itself, threatened to walk out. On both occasions, frayed tempers were soothed.

Since the DMK departure, no other major political outfit has joined hands with the UPA, except of the Jharkhand Mukti Morcha. Instead, the Samajwadi Party, which renders outside support to the UPA, joined hands with a "Third Front" spearheaded by Left parties.

From an era when the UPA- I looked robust, with even Left parties on board (they quit over the Indo-US nuclear deal), the Congress has been reduced to a status where regional satraps are handing out terms and conditions to the Grand Old Party, which the Congress has little option but to acquiesce.

In Bihar, after the LJP walked out, Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) supremo Lalu Prasad publicly offered the Congress 11 seats and issued an ultimatum. According to sources, the Congress has managed to bargain for one more but hasn't been able to get its way on the specific seats it demanded. Fighting alone in 2009, the Congress had managed to bag only two seats.

"I don't think we have much of a say in any of the states. If in Bihar for instance, we stick to our demands, the only option for us is to fight all 40 seats on our own. While that would help to strengthen the party, keeping in mind the Assembly polls next year, what will happen to the Lok Sabha verdict, which is equally crucially for us is anybody's guess," confessed a Congress general-secretary.

In Uttar Pradesh, with its 80 seats, its existing alliance with the Ajit Singh-led Rashtriya Lok Dal (RLD) is intact, with the UPA ensuring one of its last decisions in government was to fulfill its long-standing promise of Jat reservation, likely to help the RLD votebank.

The Congress had since appointed various poll-related panels under Vice-President Rahul Gandhi. The committee under Defence Minister and Congress senior A K Anthony was entrusted with the task of finalising alliances for the polls.

It has become an in-house joke within the party whenever questions about the inordinate delay in firming alliances are raised. "The Antony committee will decide" is the oft-repeated one liner. That is the answer even party spokespersons dish out when asked uncomfortable questions about the sorry state of alliances.

The Congress used to take solace from the fact that unlike the BJP, it at least held considerable clout in the Northeastern states. It will not be pleased with the news that AIUDF's Badruddin Ajmal has dismissed talk of any pact with the Congress.

Despite making good its promise of creating the separate state of Telangana from Andhra Pradesh, the Telangana Rashtra Samiti chief K C Rao has not shown any haste in making his stand clear with the Congress. The party used to get the largest numbers of its MPs from Andhra Pradesh but now faces a bleak prospect of salvaging a few seats from the Telangana region, should a seat-sharing agreement with the TRS materialise.

Confronted with a two-term anti-incumbency and a much-talked Modi wave, the Congress appears to be running directionless and amok, in its search for political alliances before the polls.