The man they love to hate

 

It’s ‘Bash Arjun Singh’ time again in the Congress as the import of the BJP’s stunning performance in the recent mayoral polls in Uttar Pradesh sinks in. Suddenly, the BJP looks set to pip the Congress to become the kingmaker if next year’s assembly polls in the Hindi belt’s most crucial state produce a hung House. Naturally, the knives are out for a scapegoat and the most likely candidate is Human Resource Development minister Arjun Singh.

 

Two delegations of Congress workers from UP have already met Rahul Gandhi and blamed Singh for turning urban voters against the party with his OBC quota gambit. The Congress nominee even lost in Kanpur which has withstood SP-BSP assaults to remain a party bastion for ten years, they pointed out. And in Varanasi, which was won by the Congress in the 2004 Lok Sabha polls, the BJP won the mayor’s post after a decade.

 

This is the scenario Congress upper caste leaders have been fearing ever since Singh fired his quota salvo earlier this year. The OBC vote was never theirs so the party gained nothing by rooting for a reservation policy, they argue. And now it seems that angry upper castes and urban voters are making the trek back to the BJP, leaving the Congress without a dependable vote bank. It’s ironic that all this grumbling and heartburning in the Congress is over a handful of mayoral posts. The 12 towns where the recent elections were held comprise just 60 of the 400 odd assembly seats. But these are crucial for both the Congress and the BJP, which have been reduced to fighting for runners-up positions in UP. They can at best hope to be junior partners in a coalition headed either by the BSP or the SP.

 

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Singh hasn’t turned a hair at the moaning and groaning among his fellow party leaders. After singeing the Congress with his version of caste politics, he’s thrown a bombshell at another vote bank the party was hoping to mop up in UP — the Muslims. Before the party or the government has taken a view on the disturbing facts revealed by the Sachar Committee on the status of Muslims in India, Singh’s guns are blazing. He’s categorically ruled out a quota policy for the community and positioned himself in front of television cameras to announce his veto. Congress leaders are clutching their hair at his ill-timed comments. Singh has done it again! First the upper castes, now the Muslims. Congress circles are fast losing hope of making a comeback in UP.

 

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The party’s hallmark lobster pot mentality is clearly at work here. Singh used the OBC reservation issue to get at Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, who he’s never accepted as head of a Congress-led government. He’s using the Muslim quota controversy to settle scores with AR Antulay, who has been his long-time rival for the slot of chief arbiter of minority affairs. (Antulay is demanding reservations for Muslims.) In the process, if the party suffers, so be it.

 

The unfortunate thing is that Singh seems to be out of control. Congress circles maintain that Sonia Gandhi has conveyed her displeasure over his antics to the HRD minister, but the frosty signals from 10 Janpath haven’t deterred him. With just three months to go for the UP polls, panic is starting to mount in the party. The Manmohan Singh government may survive if the BJP gets ahead of the Congress in this north Indian state, but in the same lameduck manner as the Bush Administration.

 

Email: a_jerath@dnaindia.net