New Delhi: Regional parties have not taken kindly to Rahul Gandhi’s recent remarks at the Congress’s Chintan Shivir in Udaipur, where he said that state-level parties do not have an ideology and thus cannot fight the Bharatiya Janata Party effectively.
That is why, he said, the BJP only focuses on criticising the Congress, and never the regional parties as it knows that only the grand old party can break their dominance.
Regional parties from across the country took umbrage at Gandhi’s statements, saying they had no basis in facts.
Janata Dal (Secular) leader H.D. Kumaraswamy alleged that the Congress has a “phobia” of regional parties, and that’s where his remarks were coming from. On a sarcastic note, he asked the former Congress president to elaborate to regional parties about ideological commitment, while saying that the national party has no presence in most parts of the country.
He said the Congress toppled the I.K. Gujral-led United Front government, demanding that DMK be kept out of the Cabinet by citing the links of the Dravidian party with the LTTE in the backdrop of former Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi’s assassination. But the same Congress in the later years shared a cordial, political relationship with that party.
“Is sharing power with the same DMK for 10 years in UPA-1 and -2 governments, led by Manmohan Singh, an ideological commitment?” he questioned in a tweet.
The former Karnataka chief minister also said Gandhi should not forget that his party enjoyed power for 10 years on the strength of regional parties. “Is joining hands (with BJP) for the immoral operation ‘Lotus’ through the back door, after coming to our (JD-S) door with an alliance proposal and forming a coalition government with us, an ideological commitment? Is destroying alliance partners ideology-based politics?” he further questioned the Congress.
The Rashtriya Janata Dal called Gandhi’s remarks “bizarre” and not in sync with his own party’s stand. RJD spokesperson Manoj Kumar Jha said regional parties are strong in a majority of Lok Sabha seats in the fight against the BJP, and the Congress should settle to be “co-travellers” and let them be in the “driving seat” in over 320 of the 543 parliamentary constituencies.
The Jharkhand Mukti Morcha, which runs a coalition government with the Congress in Jharkhand, too questioned its alliance partner. “It is Rahul Gandhi’s self-assessment and he is entitled to his opinion, but who gave him the authority to comment on ideology? How are we running the party without any ideology?”
“The fact remains that it is these regional parties on which the Congress is dependent for a fight or a win, be it the JMM in Jharkhand or the RJD in Bihar,” party spokesperson Supriyo Bhattacharya said, according to the Indian Express.
Former Jammu and Kashmir chief minister and National Conference vice-president Omar Abdullah too said Gandhi should rethink his remarks: “Generalisations are always a mistake and to paint all regional parties with the same brush is a disservice to regional parties. I can’t speak for others but we are definitely not devoid of ideology… We have elected Hindus, Muslims, Sikhs and Buddhists,” Indian Express quoted him as saying.
