Largest Opp party gets ready for a farce to elect its queen

NEW DELHI, NOVEMBER 11: The stage is set for the farce called the Congress president's election tomorrow when party chief Sonia Gandhi fac...

NEW DELHI, NOVEMBER 11: The stage is set for the farce called the Congress president’s election tomorrow when party chief Sonia Gandhi faces lonely challenger Jitendra Prasada for the party president’s post. The party’s PCC delegates, numbering over 8,500, will “elect” their chief in a day-long poll exercise.

That the exercise is little more than an academic one is clear from the fact that virtually all these delegates are men and women handpicked by Sonia’s loyalists although the party’s constitution clearly specifies that all PCC members — even district committee members — should be elected and that too by secret ballot.

Ironically, it was Sonia herself who amended the constituion to include this clause.

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Sonia and Prasada will cast their vote there as PCC delegates from the state. Sonia could have voted in New Delhi itself but she chose to take the battle to the rival’s camp, perhaps to bolster her supporters in what Prasada claims to be his turf. A host of senior leaders of the state, including N D Tiwari, Mohsina Kidwai, Salman Khursheed, are already in the state capital to organise a rousing welcome for Sonia.

“Everything is in place,” is how a Sonia loyalist described the poll preparations. It aptly summed up the unequal fight between an in-command Sonia and an isolated Prasada.

In fact, election to the party president’s post is an irony since no elections were held for the PCC delegates who comprise the electoral college. Sonia amended the party constitution with much fanfare to provide for genuine elections at every level of the party, be it the block level or that of the AICC. But when it came to brasstacks, especially after Prasada announced his challenge, the word election was conveniently forgotten.

It is open knowledge in party circles that the PCC delegates all over the country were not elected from below by party cadres but imposed from above after passing the loyalty-to-Sonia test.

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In Uttar Pradesh, which has the largest number of PCC delegates, around 1200, the PCC list was made overnight by the election incharge Birender Singh, just before the last date for nomination to the party president’s post ended. Some who were not even primary members found their way in while those who actively participated in the membership drive were simply ignored. It was a nomination, not an election, with senior state leaders packing the list with their men, depending on their clout.

The same scenario has extended to other states be in Madhya Pradesh, West Bengal, Maharashtra or Tamil Nadu. In MP, the PCC delegates’ list was shared by the state’s stalwarts, Madhavrao Scindia, Kamal Nath, Arjun Singh, Motilal Vora and chief minister Digvijay Singh.

There are interesting aspects of the constitution which too have been simply ignored. As per Article VI of the Constitution, no office bearer can hold an office ordinarily for more than two consecutive terms at the block, district and PCC levels. But the reality is just the opposite.

Not that things were any different during the last elections in 1997 under Sitaram Kesri. Then too the entire affair was orchestrated but with a significant difference: then it was Prasada who was in the thick of things, managing the electoral college for Kesri.