An unusual scene is being played out at the Congress headquarters in the capital nowadays: crowds swarm outside the room of AICC in-charge of Bihar Iqbal Singh and a gaggle of people follow Uttar Pradesh PCC chief Rita Bahuguna Joshi into the conference hall. Joshi shows up there almost everyday to declare the entry into the Congress of former ministers, MPs and MLAs earlier affiliated to SP, BSP or BJP.
These people may not be of much consequence to the Congress? fortunes in the upcoming Lok Sabha elections in UP and Bihar. But the fact is that until a few weeks ago, Bihar PCC chief Anil Sharma had to introduce himself to a party general secretary. Few among the central leaders had ever seen his predecessor Sadanand Singh. As for UP, Congress party headquarters used to be rife with rumours about senior leaders negotiating with the SP or BSP.
There is a sudden swagger in the gait of Congress leaders from UP and Bihar, thanks to the winds of change blowing from 12, Tughlaq Lane, the residence of Rahul Gandhi. According to Congress insiders, Rahul Gandhi was instrumental in the party?s transformation from a mendicant alliance partner who would agree to contest just 10 per cent of the 40 LS seats in Bihar in 2004 to keep RJD supremo Lalu Prasad Yadav in good humour to a ?self-respecting? national party whose president Sonia Gandhi refused to entertain the request for an appointment from the same leader after he cut a deal with the LJP, leaving only three seats for the Congress in Bihar.
As recently as March 17, SP chief Mulayam Singh Yadav made overtures to the Congress. ?I am ready for the talks (on seat-sharing) if the Congress wants,? he said in Lucknow. ?The SP has already put out candidates. Where is the scope for talks?? replied AICC general secretary in charge of UP, Digvijay Singh, in Delhi the same day. The SP was ready to give 17 out of the 80 Lok Sabha seats in UP to the Congress? which won 9 out of 71 seats it contested in 2004?but the ruling party at the Centre wanted many more.
Congress sources attribute this change in the Congress? attitude vis-a-vis alliance partners to Rahul Gandhi?s long-term plan to revive the party in the cow belt, the party?s old bastion that that had slipped out of its hold in the post-Mandal period. Sources say that Rahul?s suspicions about the efficacy of alliance politics in these states were strengthened after he received a first-hand account of how the Congress had ceased to exist in Bihar on his visit to flood-affected areas of the state last September.
In the ensuing months, the grand old party took steps to gradually reposition itself as the ?only national party? which could run a national government. The CWC, on January 29, decided against any national alliance with UPA partners.
While the party is conscious of the risk involved in junking allies to revive the party in UP and Bihar, the new Congress finds it worth the gamble. It believes that contesting elections on its own in 2009 would at least keep party workers motivated enough to make a serious bid in 2014.
The old Congress, meanwhile, feels confident of making it back to power at the Centre, with its hopes partly hinging on the return of its erstwhile allies and joining of new allies after election, and partly on the divisions in the opposition camp.