Cong finds itself in 'identity' crisis

Delhi Lt Governor Tejender Khanna may or may not have correctly assessed the repercussions of his announcement last week, making it mandatory for people in Delhi to carry valid identity papers all the time, which he withdrew just three days later, but it has unleashed forces which will be difficult to quell.

Letters from the Bihar and Uttar Pradesh chief ministers protesting the move and a threat by the Haryana Roadways Workers to withdraw its 1,700-strong fleet, which plies on Delhi roads, if their drivers were harassed, were an expected fallout of the surprise decision.

What has embarrassed the Congress-led government in Delhi and at the Centre, however, is not this, nor the fact that the Lt Governor did not take the chief minister into confidence while announcing the move.

It is the fact that the move has been embraced by a right wing party, the Shiv Sena, as a model to be emulated in Mumbai, which has left red faces in the Congress camp.

The Sena, in its mouthpiece Saamna's editorial pages, has "congratulated" the Delhi government. It also demanded that I-cards should be made compulsory in Mumbai too so that "outsiders" should not be allowed to enter the city without some sort of permit.

The Congress, whose political clout in Mumbai rests on the large migrant community in the city, has never felt so embarrassed.

In Delhi too, Sandeep Dikshit, the MP from East Delhi, which has a large portion of migrants who would have been targeted under this move, was the first to raise the banner of revolt and the rest of the Congress too followed.