- Tuesday, April 23, 2024
By: Shubham Ghosh
THE election in India’s most important political state Uttar Pradesh is less than a year away and the Congress, which was once a powerhouse there, has been delivered a body blow. Former central minister Jitin Prasada, one of the grand-old party’s few remaining prominent faces in the state, left to join the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), which is ruling both at the Centre and the state. The saffron party will be more than elated to see yet another young leader from the Opposition party joining its rank while the Congress will be left licking its wounds. Even India’s regional parties waiting to see an end of the Modi Era will be distraught.
Prasada, 47, who served as a junior minister in both the governments led by Manmohan Singh between 2004 and 2014, failed to deliver in the Lok Sabha elections of 2014 and 2019 (apart from the 2017 UP polls) when the BJP swept UP and India. He was in-charge of the recently concluded Assembly election in the eastern Indian state of West Bengal in which the Congress failed to earn a single seat despite contesting in alliance with the Left and the Indian Secular Front, something that experts feel contributed to Prasada’s eventual exit from the party.
Prasada, the son of late Congress leader Jitendra Prasada, was long known to be one of the closest aides to Rahul Gandhi but was left disappointed within his own party of late for being “ignored”. The man was reportedly not taken into confidence when the Congress ran its affair in his home state UP while he was overlooked during the Bengal poll. Prasada said to have developed differences with the Gandhis around the last Assembly election in UP in 2017 when the Congress joined hands with the Samajwadi Party, which was in power till the BJP toppled it. “I feel there is no purpose of doing politics or staying in a political party if a person is not able to serve or protect the interest of its people,” Prasada said after joining the BJP.
Before Jitin Prasada, Jyotiraditya Scindia left Congress
Prasada’s departure from the Congress has followed a similar script in Madhya Pradesh, another former bastion of the party where Jyotiraditya Scindia, local leader and son of late Congress leader Madhavrao Scindia, left it to join the BJP last year. He also took 22 legislators along with him, resulting the fall of the Congress’s own government in the state.
In Rajasthan, too, the Congress almost witnessed another humiliation as Sachin Pilot, son of late leader Rajesh Pilot and hence also a dynast, had also resorted to a rebellion last year against his own party’s government in India’s biggest state but backed down after the Gandhis promised him a course correction. That promise is yet to be delivered and speculation is rife is whether Pilot would be the next man out.
These defections do not only expose the Congress’s internal squabble but also cause a disappointment for those forces who aspire to see a strong opposition to Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his BJP in the next big elections – in UP in 2022 and at the national level in 2024.
The recent victory of Mamata Banerjee’s Trinamool Congress in Bengal where Modi’s BJP was decimated boosted an otherwise hapless anti-BJP front but with the Congress losing yet another prominent face in the crucial state of UP, the optimism might not last too long.
No matter how much weak the Congress becomes nationwide, the regional parties cannot hope to beat BJP without having the Congress in its alliance since it is the only other national party with a less but scattered vote share across India. But the high-profile exits of Scindia and Prasada and the near-exit of Pilot in states where the Congress is in direct contest with the BJP show that until the grand-old party puts its own house in order fast, there is very little reason for India’s regional parties opposing the BJP to succeed against Modi.
