Regional parties, allies question Rahul Gandhi's remarks on ideology

Senior Congress leader Rahul Gandhi (file image)

Leaders of regional parties have reacted sharply to Congress leader Rahul Gandhi's remarks that these outfits “lack the ideology” to take on the BJP and its ideological parent, the RSS.

Accusing the Congress of having a phobia of regional parties, many of which have tie ups with the Congress, several leaders asked Gandhi to look at their record of wins against the BJP in the recent state elections.

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The Jharkhand Mukti Morcha (JMM), which runs a coalition government with the Congress in Jharkhand, questioned its alliance partner over Gandhi’s comments.

“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?” Indian Express quoted party spokesperson Supriyo Bhattacharya as saying.

On the last day of the party's 'Chintan Shivir" on May 15, Gandhi said Congress was mounting an ideological resistance against “onslaught of the RSS” unlike the regional parties which “lack an ideology” and “have different approaches”.

"The BJP will talk about the Congress, will talk about Congress leaders, will talk about Congress workers but will not talk about regional parties because they know that regional parties have their place but they cannot defeat BJP because they don't have an ideology," Gandhi said.

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Bhattacharya said the fact remained that the Congress was dependent on regional parties for a fight or a win, be it the JMM in Jharkhand or the Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) in Bihar.

RJD leader and Rajya Sabha member Manoj Kumar Jha said regional parties were strong in majority of the Lok Sabha seats 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.

"I find it a little bizarre and out of sync," Jha told PTI. The RJD, the main opposition party in Bihar, had emerged as the single largest party in the 2020 assembly polls.

The RJD and the Congress had partnered at national and state level but lately, the relationship has frayed.

Gandhi’s remarks notwithstanding, the declaration passed after the three-day Udaipur session called to review the party’s performance said the Congress was committed to establishing a dialogue with all like-minded parties to protect the spirit of nationalism and democracy and would keep open avenues for forging alliances according to political circumstances.

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Janata Dal (S) leader HD Kumaraswamy said the Congress was facing a phobia of regional parties, asking Gandhi to elaborate on his comments.

“The Congress toppled the IK 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,” Kumaraswamy, a former chief minister of Karnataka, said.

In the 2018 assembly polls, Congress and JD(S), which fought elections separately, joined hands to form a coalition government in Karnataka under the leadership of Kumaraswamy.

The government, however, lasted only 14 months due to dissidence and with MLAs from both parties joining the BJP.

Former Jammu and Kashmir chief minister and National Conference vice-president Omar Abdullah, too, said Gandhi should rethink his remarks.

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Congress leader Shashi Tharoor, however, played down the remarks.

"I think what Rahul Gandhi meant was that we have a national vision. We speak for and think of the country as a whole. Whereas a regional party by its very character and nature is usually confined to one particular region or interest group," he told NDTV in an interview.