From North East to South via West, the Congress faces a fresh set of troubles

After a string of electoral defeats, the Congress believed it was turning a corner after it emerged victorious in a number of local body elections in Bharatiya Janata Party-ruled states and was a member of the winning team in the recent Bihar assembly polls.

The Congress was convinced that the BJP’s popularity ratings are dropping and it was only a matter of time before it bounced back. But just when it appeared that things were looking up for it, the grand old party is beset with a fresh set of troubles. From the North East corner of the country to the Southern tip, the Congress is presently battling on various fronts.

It is mired in a prolonged legal and political fight in its bid to save its government in Arunachal Pradesh.

Oommen Chandy, the Congress chief minister in Kerala, faces serious corruption charges in the solar scam barely three months before the next assembly election.

In Maharashtra, the old Adarsh Housing Society has returned to haunt the Congress after the Devendra Fadnavis government recommended that Governor C Vidyasagar Rao give necessary permission to the Central Bureau of Investigation to prosecute the former state chief minister for his alleged involvement in this building scandal.

Warning signs

At a time when it has barely half-a-dozen state governments in its kitty, it has become imperative for the Congress to save its government in Aurnachal Pradesh, which has been in the grip of a serious crisis for the past several months. The BJP-led National Democratic Alliance has imposed Centra rule in Arunachal Pradesh on the ground that there was a Constitutional crisis in the border state while the Congress has challenged the decision in the Supreme Court.

The Congress has been quick to cry foul and accuse the BJP of destabilising a democratically elected government, a charge which has some merit as the BJP is desperate to establish itself in regions where it has no presence. Nabam Tuki, the Arunachal Pradesh chief minister, made its task easy as his inability to keep his flock together provided the BJP an opportunity to woo the Congress rebels. The presence of a friendly governor in the state also helped the BJP.

But it is also a fact that the Congress could have avoided the present crisis if it had seen the warning signs and acted in time.

Rebellion against Tuki had been brewing for nearly a year but the Congress leadership made no effort to redress the grievances of the dissidents.

It all began in late 2014 when Tuki dropped senior minister Kalikho Pul and ensured his expulsion from the Congress. Matters got progressively worse when several ministers put in their papers while a large number of legislators also raised a banner of revolt against Tuki. The dissidents camped in Delhi for nearly three months but they failed to get an appointment with Congress president Sonia Gandhi or party vice-president Rahul Gandhi. Congress general secretary incharge of North East V Narayansamy, who is now making a belated effort to reach out to the rebels, also proved to be ineffective in putting down the rebellion.

It was the same story in Assam earlier when the Congress leadership chose to ignore the demand for the removal of chief minister Tarun Gogoi by a section of the party led by his former minister Himanta Biswa Sarma. Like their colleagues in Arunachal Pradesh, the Assam Congress rebels were not taken seriously and eventually Sarma and his supporters walked out and joined the BJP. The Congress is likely to pay a heavy price letting Sarma go as he is said to be an excellent political manager. Sarma was responsible for stitching up an alliance between the BJP and the Bodo People’s Front.

The Congress is now hoping for a favourable verdict from the Supreme Court to save its government in Arunachal Pradesh. It will prove to be major setback if the BJP succeeds in forming a government in this North eastern state. The ruling party will be emboldened to do the same in neighbouring Meghalaya and Manipur, both ruled by the Congress. It will send out the message that the Congress is in decline, and that the BJP is the new rising power. In fact, the developments in Arunachal Pradesh are also expected to impact the upcoming assembly polls in Assam where a resurgent BJP is making strenuous efforts to dislodge the three-term Congress government.

Fresh troubles

In distant Kerala, Chandy may have got a temporary reprieve after the Kerala High Court stayed the filing of a First Information Report against him in the solar scam but his political opponents are bound to raise the pitch against him and the Congress as the elections draw closer.

The protests staged by the Communist Party of India (Marxist) cadres outside the Kerala secretariat on Friday, which forced the authorities to resort to lathi charge and tear gas, provided a glimpse of what is expected in the coming days. Chandy is known to be clever politician and manipulator but he will need to marshal all his skills to survive this crisis. Although the Congress realises that Chandy has no moral right to continue as chief minister, the party has decided to extend full support to him as it believes that removing him would be tantamount to an admission of guilt.

While the Congress is gearing up for a tough contest in Kerala, there is trouble brewing in Maharashtra. Its former chief minister Ashok Chavan will find the going tough in the coming days as the Adarsh Housing Society case, which was lying buried till now, has been reopened. This comes at a time when the Congress was patting itself on the back for doing well in the recent civic and local body elections, widely viewed as a sign of its revival in Maharashtra.

Chavan had managed to survive so far as the CBI was unable to prosecute him because the former governor K Sankaranarayanan did not give it permission to proceed. But now that the BJP is in power, it has cleared the way for the governor to allow the CBI to prosecute the former chief minister.

The Congress will have a tough time defending Chavan especially since it rehabilitated him politically after he proved his utility when he won his Lok Sabha seat in the 2014 general election despite the Modi wave which decimated the Congress in the state. The Congress appointed him Maharashtra Congress chief and is depending on him to woo the crucial Maratha vote and rebuild the party in this electorally-crucial state.