A gentleman who tried very hard to contest the last election on a Congress ticket had several revealing encounters in New Delhi. The screening committee formed by the party high-command to select candidates in Jharkhand had practically nobody with intimate knowledge of the constituencies or the ground reality. A former union minister and an old Bihar hand, L.P. Shahi, was included in the committee under the presumption that his views would be objective. That Shahi plays no role in state politics and has no control or contact with local, grassroot Congress workers and leaders was ignored.
Noor Bano, who lost the Rampur Lok Sabha seat in Uttar Pradesh to Jayaprada, was inexplicably included in the committee. She had no interest, let alone idea, of Jharkhand, claims the gentleman, who was eventually denied a ticket. It can be a case of sour grapes but what is certain is that the Congress, in its arrogance, made not one but several mistakes in Jharkhand, for which it is paying dearly.
The first mistake was to put Sushila Kerketta at the helm of affairs. Had the lady been asked to make a half an hour long presentation on Jharkhand politics, the cat would have been out of the bag. But Mohsina Kidwai and Ahmed Patel relied upon their own sources and reposed their faith in the lady who is said to understand the value of money better than politics. It followed it up with a series of mistakes in the selection of candidates. Just one example will suffice. The national party decided that its cause in Jharkhand would be served better by putting up Gopal Sahu, a hotelier with many other business interests, as its candidate from the state capital.
There was little or no opposition from local Congress leaders, either because they were won over or because some of them actually wanted Sahu to lose so that he would no longer be in a position to stake his claim for a Congress ticket in future.
Several Congressmen lament the fact that while during the days of Rajiv Gandhi, the AICC had developed a data base on all constituencies and details of all Congress leaders, the present AICC does not appear to have a clue.
Sahu has had very little interaction with the common voters and their problems in Ranchi, confining his activities instead to functions related to organisations like the ?Rose Society? or the International Library. No wonder the poor man was a lame duck right from the start , especially because the sitting BJP MLA was perceived as far more accessible by even rivals. The next mistake the Congress made was to leave out Laloo Yadav from the alliance. It suited Soren because he had convinced himself that he would be the next chief minister and he did not want a troublesome Laloo breathing down his neck. It also appeared to suit the Congress, which genuinely believed that 1984 was back again, that even a lamp-post fielded by it would win. It therefore wanted to contest as many seats as possible, hoping all the time that it would end up winning more seats than the JMM so that it could have its own chief minister in the state. It also suited the ambitious, local Congress leaders who hoped their higher profile in New Delhi might make them a more credible alternative for the chief minister's chair.
The overall Congress strategy of fomenting discontent within the Jharkhand Mukti Morcha and encouraging the split with Stephen Marandi backfired because it was both diabolical and unfair. Congress also made the mistake of baring its fangs after the election. Frustrated because its own tally had actually gone down, reducing it to the status of a junior partner in the alliance, the party had to swallow its pride and seek the help of Laloo Yadav to inch closer to the majority. Having taken the Left parties' support for granted, although both Congress and the JMM had put up candidates against the two Forward Bloc candidates who ultimately won, it still needed the support of five independent legislators. But a petulant Congress apparently washed its hands of the responsibility. ?It is Shibu Soren's government; let him pay the money and mobilise support. Why should the Congress pay up,? asked senior Congress leaders. Soren, however, did not apparently have the kind of money required to buy support for himself. He would, therefore, refer all such cases to Congress leaders camping in a hotel at Lalpur chowk. Thus, while the Congress and the JMM were busy putting the ball in the other's court, NDA's poll managers had already pressed their backroom boys for the job. It is not easy, therefore, to answer whether Congress was let down by Soren or if the national party actually let down Guruji. The party must also ask itself what its members of Parliament from Jharkhand have been doing. Four of them, including Sushila Kerketta, had got their sons to contest as Congress candidates and were understandably busy in the four constituencies.
All the sons lost and in the post-poll crisis in the state, none of these stalwartsappeared to have played any role except the much-maligned Subodh Kant Sahay. Soul-searching does not come easily to national parties but the Congress would do well to do the exercise when it still has some goodwill left in the state.
