Congress’s exclusion of INDIA bloc allies from Dec 14 SIR rally raises eyebrows

The Congress is gearing up for a “maha rally” at Delhi’s Ramlila Maidan on December 14 to protest against the nationwide rollout of Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls.

Also Read: Karnataka crisis: 'Congress High Command in a weak spot'

However, the party’s decision to invite only its own leaders from the 12 states and Union territories in which the SIR is currently underway has irked its allies in the INDIA bloc, considering that the exercise has been a rallying point for the combined opposition ever since it was first launched in Bihar.

Congress sidelines allies

Sources in the Congress confirmed that none of its allies in the INDIA bloc have, so far, been invited to participate in the "Vote Chor Gaddi Chhod" protest rally.

The omission is particularly glaring given the recent drubbing the Congress and its alliance partners — Lalu Yadav’s RJD and the Left parties, in particular — faced in Bihar and even more so since the Congress has officially blamed “election engineering” by the BJP-led NDA coalition through the Bihar SIR for its disastrous performance.

Besides, Opposition-ruled Tamil Nadu, Kerala, and West Bengal, all of which go to polls early next year and where the SIR is currently underway, have challenged the Election Commission’s exercise in the Supreme Court.

Their petitions are listed for hearing during the first week of December, ahead of the Congress’s anti-SIR rally. INDIA bloc leaders have also been eager to corner Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government during the upcoming winter session of Parliament, which commences on December 1, using the SIR as a plank to raise the larger issue of erosion of the Election Commission’s independence.

United 'vote chori' campaign

It may be recalled that the poll panel’s announcement of the Bihar SIR ahead of the Parliament’s monsoon session this year had acted as a glue to bind a then-fracturing INDIA bloc. The Opposition coalition had launched a coordinated offensive against the Centre at the time and the Centre’s reluctance to concede to the INDIA bloc’s demand for a threadbare debate in the Parliament on the functioning of the Election Commission had practically washed out a bulk of the monsoon session.

Also Read: Congress's Bihar rout review sweeps aside 'ticket selling' allegations, shifts blame to 'vote chori'

It is this recent collective engagement of the Opposition with the SIR issue that has left many in the INDIA bloc ranks puzzled over the Congress’s decision to keep its allies at bay for the December 14 rally.

"It would have been good on part of Congress to invite all leaders of the INDIA bloc… most MPs from Opposition parties would anyway be in Delhi at the time to participate in the winter session. It is a missed opportunity," a leader from an INDIA bloc party from Maharashtra, one of the States excluded from the ongoing SIR rollout, told The Federal.

No response from party high command

The Congress has offered no plausible explanation, thus far, for excluding its allies from the December 14 rally. Manickam Tagore, the Congress’s chief whip in the Lok Sabha and MP from Tamil Nadu, where ally DMK has been on the warpath against the Centre and the EC over the SIR merely said it was a “party decision” not to invite allies.

“We had decided after the August session (monsoon session) that we would launch a three-month campaign against vote chori. The December 14 rally is a culmination of this campaign,” Tagore told The Federal.

Another Congress leader who did not wish to be named sought to project the anti-SIR stir as entirely his party’s brainchild. “It’s all our work... At the time of Bihar elections, it was taken up by our party. A signature campaign was launched in which five crore signatures against ‘vote chori’ were obtained by the party from the public across the country,” this leader said, while adding that “no other party was involved” in the campaign in such an expansive way.

Repeated attempts to reach out to Congress general secretary (organisation) KC Venugopal and the party’s communications department chief Jairam Ramesh for a response on the party’s decision not to invite allies for the rally went unanswered.

Allies pitted against each other

One view among a section of party leaders was that inviting certain INDIA bloc partners for the December 14 rally could have created political complications as the Congress was set to face these parties in the batch of assembly polls due early next year across West Bengal, Kerala, Assam, Tamil Nadu and Pondicherry.

For instance, though Mamata Banerjee’s Trinamool Congress is officially still a part of the INDIA bloc nationally, it remains out of the alliance in Bengal.

Likewise, while the Left parties were part of the Opposition alliance in Bihar and are likely to stay allied to the Congress in Tamil Nadu and Bengal in next year’s assembly polls too, the contest in Kerala pits the Left and the Congress directly against each other.

Frustration over Congress's repeated failures

As such, a section of party leaders believe that not just the Congress but even the Trinamool Congress and the Left parties may have had reservations against participating in a rally that was essentially being organised at the Congress’ behest.

Also Read: Ambedkar, Constitution facing sustained assault from RSS, says Congress

This aside, several INDIA bloc constituents have grown weary of the Congress’s continuing electoral failures against the BJP following the short-lived reversal of fortunes during the Lok Sabha polls.

The senior leadership of such allies may have chosen to give the rally a miss if invited, to signal their reservations against the Congress’s assumed centrality to the INDIA bloc; thereby leaving the Congress leadership embarrassed.

Pollution norms pose threat

Congress sources, however, told The Federal that there was “still a possibility” of an invitation being shared with INDIA bloc parties by Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge to participate in the rally.

“So far, it is true that the rally is going to be an out and out Congress show and no allies have been invited but there are some who believe the SIR should remain a unifying factor for the INDIA bloc. There is a possibility that when the Congress president meets or speaks to senior leaders of the alliance before the start of Parliament’s winter session to discuss floor strategy, he may invite them for the rally too,” a senior party functionary and MP told The Federal.

Meanwhile, there is also a growing sense of unease within the party regarding the rally, but it is a matter unrelated to the INDIA bloc constituents. Sources said the Congress leadership expects the Centre and the BJP-led Delhi government to create hurdles for the smooth conduct of the December 14 rally.

With air pollution worsening in Delhi and Graded Response Action Plan (GRAP) 4 measures currently in force across the national capital, Congress sources said the BJP had a ready weapon to sabotage the rally by either cancelling permission for it or by placing major restrictions using air pollution as an excuse.