Poll lesson: Cong decides to keep hands off dissidents

After the bitter lesson of the Gujarat Assembly poll, the Congress has informally made up its mind to be extremely cautious in dealing with the dissidents who join it right before elections in order to just get tickets.

At yesterday's stock-taking meeting at 10, Janpath, senior leaders like External Affairs Minister Pranab Mukherjee and Human Resource Development Minister Arjun Singh expressed serious reservations about giving tickets to the dissidents who jump the fence just before elections. Party President Sonia Gandhi promptly agreed.

In Gujarat, the Congress gave tickets to as many as seven BJP MLAs of the last Assembly who had fallen out with Chief Minister Narendra Modi and joined the Congress on condition that they would be given the hand symbol.

The eighth seat "" of former state home minister Govardan Zadaphia "" was also given away with the Congress agreeing to give ticket to a candidate of his choice.

All except one dissident lost miserably, adding to the party's woes in the Saurashtra region.

Senior party leaders said dissidents could not shift the goodwill of the people when they change the party.

"We have noticed that voters generally don't like their leaders to switch loyalties. Someone who belongs to a particular political party represents a particular ideology. Joining the other camp with the opposite ideology erodes the credibility of the candidate", said a participant.

Of course, the doors of 10, Janpath, will remain open to dissidents if they come in large numbers or join the party without demanding party tickets.

"Cases of Chandrababu Naidu or Mamata Banerjee are different. They virtually split the mother party and went out with many supporters. We acknowledge their leadership qualities," said a party manager.

In the first post-mortem of the Gujarat debacle, many party leaders pointed out that in some cases, good candidates inside the party had to be overlooked to accommodate the rebels. That was a mistake as the rebels were not able to bring their supporters and the disgruntled party workers didn't work hard, they said.