A bulky introspection report prepared under AK Antony?s stewardship almost 10 years ago and consigned to the shelves is suddenly being sought after Congress president Sonia Gandhi on Wednesday appointed the senior party leader to head another committee to identify party shortcomings and suggest guidelines for coming assembly and Lok Sabha elections.
Yet, it may prove to be a tough challenge to update the report as a number of formulations arrived then by Antony and his team in the backdrop of the 1999 Lok Sabha elections are no longer valid in today’s coalition era. The task has become more difficult as the new seven member committee has been given only fifteen days to compile its suggestions.
According to sources, the stand of the Congress on alliances in the earlier report is in stark contrast to the one it has adopted today. For instance, the report then had made a strong recommendation to avoid alliances with parties like the RJD and JMM in Bihar to ensure growth of Congress. The situation,however, is just the opposite, with Lalu Prasad among the staunchest allies of the Congress.
The earlier Antony report had also made a strong pitch for a tie-up with Mayawati?arguing that the BSP would only damage the Congress by cutting into its votes if they fought both assembly as well as Lok Sabha elections separately. The key, the report had then contended, was to negotiate an alliance in such a manner that the party would emerge as the major beneficiary.
To be ahead in the electoral race, the earlier report had also proposed that candidates for Lok Sabha polls be announced six months in advance. It even recommended that in seats which Congress lost repeatedly, the party should declare candidates a year ahead. Likewise, for assembly candidates, the committee then was of the view that they should be declared a month in advance and six months ahead in constituencies where the party had lost repeatedly.
For those who joined the party on the eve of elections, the earlier report had suggested that their entry be delinked from ticket distribution.
The seven member committee comprising AICC general secretaries Digvijay Singh and Mukul Wasnik, union ministers PR Dasmunshi and Mani Shankar Aiyar, J&K chief minister Ghulam Nabi Azad and senior leader Urmila Singh today are now keen to access the 300 page report that went unread by members of the eleven member committee headed by AK Antony. The group was constituted by Gandhi as a follow-up to a decision taken at the last CWC meeting held in the backdrop of the defeat in Karnataka.