Congress may use caste players to wrest power

Bhopal: Pushed into a now-or-never situation, the Congress perhaps sees an alliance with “caste parties” — BSP, SP and GGP (Gandwana Ganatantra Party) — the “only and sure way” to wrest power from the BJP in the upcoming Assembly polls in Madhya Pradesh, slated for November-December this year.

The Congress which is facing the threat of ceding its base in MP to the emerging political forces such as Aam Aadmi Party (AAP), has been doing its best to cobble up a potent political formation in order to return to power after a gap of 15 years.

“The BJP won last three Assembly polls by dividing Opposition votes. We will stop the disintegration of non-BJP votes in this election by forging alliance with smaller parties,” MP Congress chief Kamal Nath has said while revealing his party’s key poll strategy.

But, even a wily politician like Mr Nath is finding it hard to make any headway in the seat-sharing talks with his prospective allies because of their “unreasonable” demands of seats.

“It has been over a month since Mr Nath met the BSP supremo Mayawati to set in motion talks on seat-sharing between the two parties. But, no breakthrough could  be made. The BSP is in no mood to settle below 40 seats, although, the Congress is ready to share 20-22 seats with it,” said a Congress leader.

A senior BSP leader, however, justified their demand arguing that the party won four seats and ended up in the second place in 11 Assembly constituencies in the last polls. Besides, the party came third in at least 45 other seats denying the Congress a win in these seats. Effectively, the Congress lost 41 seats in the last elections for not entering into an alliance with the BSP.

In the current 230-member MP Assembly, the BJP has a  strength of 166 while the Congress and the BSP have 57 and four members respectively. There are three independent MLAs.

The GGP, a tribal political outfit having its influence of pockets in at least a dozen adivasi-dominated districts in MP, has demanded from the Congress at least 50 seats as its share. Sources said Congress was willing to share only 4-5 seats with GGP.

“The Congress has not initiated any formal seat-sharing talks with us. We have influence in at least 50 Assembly constituencies. But, we may settle for 12-15 seats if the alliance takes place,” G.S. Markam, national general secretary of GGP, told this newspaper here.

Significantly, he indicated that GGP was negotiating separately with Samajwadi Party to explore the possibility of joining the Third Front.

“Akhilesh Yadav held secret talks with GGP national president Hira Singh Markam at Hotel Noor-us-Sabah in Bhopal on July 19 in this regard,” GGP sources revealed.

The tribal leader also hinted that Mr Yadav was keen to use the GGP as a bargaining chip to raise his stock in Opposition politics in Uttar Pradesh as well as grab a few more seats for the party in MP elections.

Sources said Mr Yadav, in his talks with Mr Nath,  had sought a share of 12-15 seats, but the Congress was not willing to part with more than one seat.

“The Congress is going to field its candidates in at least 200 out of total 230 Assembly constituencies and hence is willing to share at best 30 seats to its prospective allies. But, we find their demands unusually high. Hence, the talks have made no significant progress so far,” a Congress leader said.

But, the BJP appears unfazed at the prospect of facing a one-to-one fight with Congress-led formation in the polls.

In the last elections, the percentage of votes polled by small parties together was 7.42  — BSP 6.29, GGP 1 and SP 0.03. This was far below 8.49, the difference of percentage of votes polled by the BJP (44.87 per cent) and the Congress (36.38 per cent).

Hence, the Congress-led alliance, if it takes place, will pose no threat to BJP in winning a consecutive fourth term in the state, a BJP spokesman here said.

Of course, if signals emanating from BJP are taken into account, then wooing leaders of the small parties to divide their vote banks cannot be ruled out.