Congress plenary resolution to showcase itself as 'pro-poor party'

NEW DELHI: The political resolution at the week-end AICC plenary session could pit ‘encompassing Indian ethos’ as the political, ideological and social moorings of Congress to counter “sectarian and narrow Hindutva ideology of the RSS-BJP combine”, a party insider said. The draft political resolution, even while indicating willingness for alliances with like-minded parties, will focus more on the need for re-building the party from state to state to project itself as a credible alternative to BJP nationally.

The draft economic resolution will also position Congress as a ‘pro-poor party’ with professed commitment to economic reforms as an instrument for general economic welfare and empowerment of the socially and economically deprived sections and meet the aspirations of the youth, women and middle class, “unlike Modi government’s economic thrust meant to help concentration of wealth in the hands of a few rich” besides “encouraging crony capitalism”, the resolution would say, the person said.

The draft resolutions will be placed before the Congress steering committee for endorsements — with changes if required — before it is moved at the plenary session. With ‘kisan politics’ a major flavour of politics across states, the party’s separate resolution on farmers’ issues will spell out an agenda for the welfare of this key constituency.

The assertion of Congress as a party of ‘Indian ethos’, a byword for ‘secularism’, is meant to project its moorings in tolerant and liberal Hinduism in pluralist India. This positioning coincides with BJP’s efforts to project itself as a Hindu party and brand Congress as ‘pro-minorities’. The concern of Congress to wriggle out of the BJP branding has been rather candidly aired by Sonia Gandhi a few days ago when she admitted Rahul Gandhi’s frequent temple visits were designed to identify with ‘Hindu sensitivity’.

While Congress acknowledges inevitability of coalition politics to take on the Modi government, the plenary session — when Congress faces unprecedented organisational challenges and electoral meltdown across India — will assert on the prime task of re-building the party as it realises the tactical requirement of projecting itself as a party “protective of own space and expanding it” to deftly position in the bargaining politics of coalition.

“AICC session will have to realistically acknowledge and project the fact that Congress is now an Opposition party, at best a challenger — not a party with the lingering hangover of a ‘has been’ ruling party — that has to position itself on the ground as the one required to wrest the lost space,” said a senior Congress leader.