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| Factionalism in Congress would help NC and damage country | | | NEHA
EARLY TIMES REPORT
JAMMU, Jan 31: Congress on Sunday made a mockery of itself by holding two parallel functions in Jammu, held to pay homage to Mahatma Gandhi. It was not a mere show of strength. Crowds could be managed and imported. Hence, it doesn't matter who addressed a bigger rally or who addressed a small and an unimpressive rally. What matter was the signal the two parallel rallies sent across the state and country and the signal was that the Congress leadership in the state is interested in settling personal scores and letting each other down. Yet another signal the two Congress rallies sent was that the congress high command has lost its grip over its state unit and that there are elements in the Congress in Jammu and Kashmir who could go to any extent to lower the image of the party in the state and prove that they play the shots and others are there at the helm only because they politic in New Delhi so that they remain in the good books of those who matter.
The parallel rallies sent one more signal: The Congress ministers and legislators are vertically divided into two groups and Members of Parliament representing Jammu-Poonch-Rajouri and Udhampur-Kathua-Doda Parliamentary constituencies are also pulling in different directions. The crux of the matter is that the vertical division in the Congress was in full display on Sunday, thus establishing beyond any shadow of doubt that the factionalism within the party has assumed alarming proportions and that the situation has now climaxed to the point of no return. Should it also be presumed that there are certain elements in the Congress high command who are deliberately encouraging factionalism in the Congress party in Jammu and Kashmir in order to weaken it and enable the NC to play the role it wants to play with a view to facilitating the state's segregation from India?
What would be the impact of the Sunday rallies on the state's political scene and on the country as a whole? The impact would be both negative and dangerous. The squabbles, personality and ego clashes, bitter power struggle and ambitions and recklessness on the part of the two factions -- one led by the JKPCC chief and the other by the Union Minister - would, on the one hand, prove a god-sent opportunity for the NC, which has already caused an irreparable damage to the national cause by openly identifying itself with the forces inimical to India, and, on the other, these negative developments would greatly help the parties like the BJP and the Panthers Party to occupy more and more political space in the Jammu province.
It would not matter if the BJP and the Panthers Party snatch the political space from the faction-ridden Congress. Such things do happen in politics. People tilt towards those who, they feel, could deliver and mitigate their hardships. What would matter more will be the additional space the Congress would be creating for the National Conference, which has been playing havoc and systematically driving the state away from the country's mainstream or which has been communalizing the state polity in its desperate bid to prove that it is no different from the separatist and regressive organizations like the APHC (M) and Tehrik-e-Hurriyat of dreaded Syed Ali Shah Geelani.
Now that the Congress ministers are vertically divided and the Congress MPs, MLAs and MLCs have made their loyalties public by their conspicuous presence in one or the other rally, it is advantage the NC. The canny and controversial NC would surely exploit to the hilt the factionalism within the Congress and do what it couldn't do in the past. The NC would surely exploit the situation and become more assertive, thus adopting policies designed to unsettle the settled in Kashmir, outraging the sensitivities of the nationalist constituency and causing further damage to the cause of Jammu province, which has never got its due share in the state's political and economic processes. The NC, which was already playing the shots in the cabinet meetings and forcing down the throat of the Congress ministers controversial and unsettling decisions, would be now more assertive.
The moral of the story is that the Congress leadership has failed to exhibit political maturity at a time when the country was looking towards it with the hope that it would rein in the controversial NC, apply brakes when required and defend the national cause. The Congress leadership has behaved most irresponsibly. Obviously, it's advantage NC, separatists and rank communalists and it's disadvantage the country and Jammu province, which, like Ladakh, represents the national sentiment. Things are not good. |
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