Maharashtra Congress groping in the dark

Mumbai: The BJP has already started identifying candidates for the Maharashtra assembly polls to be held in October and its ally –– the Shiv Sena –– has begun drought relief work in the rural parts of the state to woo voters there.

The Nationalist Congress Party (NCP), which received a drubbing, had also begun its public outreach programme even before the Lok Sabha poll results were announced. The odd man out is the Congress.

Maharashtra Congress chief Ashok Chavan has resigned and there is no clarity on whether his resignation would be accepted or whether he would be asked to continue.


NO SERIOUS STRATEGY
The state Congress has held a few meetings but the only serious discussion has been on how to get Vanchit Bahujan Aghadi into Congress-NCP fold.

“There is almost a paralysis of some kind. Ideally, we should have begun sending central observers to the state, appointing observers in the district, identifying issues that resonate among the people, started working on the manifesto committee so that we can give the people a manifesto. With just three months remaining, the work should have started by now. However, things currently are in such a state in our party that it is taken that we are going to lose,” said a state Congress leader.

The only noteworthy thing the party has done is to form a panel headed by Sushil Kumar Shinde to work out a deal with Prakash Ambedkar to get the Vanchit Bahujan Aghadi to support their alliance or work out a formula to woo Dalit votes if Vanchit does not join Congress-NCP. The Congress leader said the party had run out of ideas and was still in shock.

“What else can explain the fact that the committee set up to attract Dalit votes is led by a man who lost because he could not woo Dalits in his own constituency?” said the Congress leader, referring to Shinde.