Jagan latest in long line of Cong rebels striking out on their own

NEW DELHI: Rebel Congress MP Jagan Mohan Reddy is the latest in a long line of Congress dissidents to walk out of the monolithic party to carve out some space of their own. Some were successful in creating a turf to survive in politics but a few others floundered and returned to the party fold regretting their mistakes.

In the roiled waters of Andhra Pradesh politics, Chenna Reddy, once a formidable Congress leader, left the party to float Telangana Praja Samiti and swept the 1971 Lok Sabha elections in that region but subsequently merged the outfit with the parent party. Another Congress stalwart in the state, N G Ranga, joined the Swatantra Party before returning to the fold.

This trend has been visible in different parts of the country. Congress veteran V C Shukla, a senior leader from undivided Madhya Pradesh, jumped on to V P Singh’s Jan Morcha bandwagon but later returned to the old party.
Despite his bitter, bristling fight with Rajiv Gandhi, V P Singh himself at one point got close to Congress though he never formally came home.

Pranab Mukherjee, the UPA government’s principal firefighter now, had a short stint of rebellion during which he floated a regional outfit. But after a miserable performance in the West Bengal assembly elections in 1987, he came back to Congress.

Captain Amarinder Singh, party strongman in Punjab, too flirted with an independent political journey with the launch of his own party and conforming to the pattern, returned to Congress later.

One of the more recent examples of a repentent Congressman coming home is K Karunakaran, once a towering Congress figure in Kerala, who revolted and walked out before returning to the party. But yesterday’s rebels coming home to Congress is not the only story. Sharad Pawar in Maharashtra and Mamata Banerjee in Bengal have successfully bucked the trend and created space for their brand of regional politics. They have made alliance with Congress as equal partners but have not so far succumbed to pressure from Big Brother.

Dad a rebel too

YSR was elected from Pulivendula in 1978 on Congress (Reddy) ticket. Later he switched over to Congress (Indira). YSR, a born rebel, used to criticise Vijayabhaskar Reddy openly during his tenure as chief minister between 1982-83 and 1992-94 . But he never left the party.