Patch up & fight polls together, Sonia tells Congress leaders

NEW DELHI: Gearing up to face assembly elections in four states, Congress president Sonia Gandhi on Tuesday asked the party’s warring state factions to sign a poll-time truce in order to put up a united fight.

In yet another message that could alert some Congress allies like the Left and the RJD, Ms Gandhi directed the Congress units in states controlled by its allies to work towards strengthening the party base without bothering too much about the alliance chemistry at the Centre.

Of the four election-bound states, the Congress is in power in three Punjab, Uttaranchal and Manipur, and will have to battle incumbency disadvantage. This, Ms Gandhi said, makes it all the more important for these state units to sink internal differences and face the electoral challenge.

“We have a special challenge since we are the incumbent government in three of these (poll-bound) states. I am sure that our party workers recognise this and appreciate the need for party unity and discipline,” she said addressing party MPs.

The never-ending infighting in the Congress units of Punjab and Uttaranchal have been bothering the leadership for quite some time. Despite many efforts by the high command, there has been no let up in the factional feud between the warring groups in Punjab, one led by chief minister Amarinder Singh and the other by Rajinder Kaur Bhattal. Similarly, the factions led by chief minister ND Tiwari and PCC president Harish Rawat are facing off in Uttaranchal.

The Congress president has reasons to be concerned about the developments in the Left-ruled West Bengal and the RJD-dominated Bihar. In West Bengal, Congress leaders have been exhausting their energy in fighting each other rather than putting up any credible resistance to the Left Front.

Besides affecting the Congress revival in the state, the infighting also resulted in the Left taking full credit for many centrally-funded schemes in the state. In a recent meeting, Ms Gandhi had told Bengal Congress leaders to go to the field and publicise the merit of the central programmes, rather than play a game of musical chairs over the PCC presidentship.

“The UPA is a coalition to which we are deeply committed. But this does not in any way mean that strengthening our party organisation in the states ruled by our allies takes a back seat. We, as a party, must strive our utmost to maintain our distinctive identity in these states,” Ms Gandhi said on Tuesday.

The message is meant for Bihar too, where, even after the defeat of the RJD regime, the crisis-ridden Congress continues to languish under the looming shadow of Lalu Prasad Yadav, with no visible organisational efforts on the part of the PCC to try and revive itself. Perhaps the high command was signalling the need for the Bihar PCC to be independent when it admitted former RJD spokesman Sanjay Paswan into the party on Monday.