NEW DELHI: Barring the more durable ideological chains imposed by cadre-based parties, it could once be characterised as an informal but regular exchange of prisoners within the Indian party system. ‘Aaya Ram Gaya Ram’ was a fairly democratic practice of give-and-take of political capital between parties. The number of Indian leaders who have seen more than one party would make for a fairly healthy statistic. But what used to be the occasional (if routine) depletion in the ranks—offset by fresh arrivals from the other sides—has turned into a full-blooded haemorrhage for the Congress in recent times.
And it’s strictly unidirectional: from the ruined mansion of the Congress to the spiffy, new headquarters of the BJP.
When former Delhi PCC chief Arvinder Singh Lovely turned in his papers and joined the BJP on the eve of the high-stakes municipality polls—accompanied by state Youth Congress chief Amit Malik, and followed by state women’s unit chief Barkha Singh—he was only furthering a recent trend. Just before the recent Assembly polls, Rita Bahuguna Joshi, former UPCC chief went over to the BJP only to safeguard her Lucknow seat.
She’s now a high-profile minister. Former PCC boss Yashpal Arya did likewise in Uttarakhand. As Dalit party leader Jai Kishan says, it’s a reflection of the kind of self-serving leaders the Congress has fostered. “I’ve been MLA five times from Delhi, I have never even been minister once, but I’ve never left.”
But loyalty and politics don’t necessarily go together. It’s all about ongoing man-management. Pranab Mukherjee had said as UPA-I took office in 2004, as the Congress’s first coalition experiment: “Why should we have a problem? What is the Congress if not a coalition of ideas and leaders?” Of late, that coalition management has been woefully slack.
With Sonia Gandhi taking a backseat and Rahul Gandhi less skilled in managing people, ruffled egos have headed straight for the exit and out to better pastures. A recent roll call: Chaudhary Birender Singh (now a Union minister), Himanta Biswa Sarma (now BJP point man, Northeast), Nongthombam Biren
Singh (CM, Manipur). And yes, S M Krishna. And pssst...what was that about Kamal Nath?
The gloom deepened the other day with buzz about Nath. He of course denied it. The next man may not.