State Congress gets new executive body after seven years

Upheavals on the national political scene notwithstanding, Congressmen appear always firm on their opinion that nobody can ignore Congress and the importance of their party is undeniable. The party leaders might have failed to do justice to their responsibility, but a large section of the common voters have always supported the grand old party. 

 To substantiate this example of elections to Maharashtra state assembly held in 2019 would suffice.

Given the kind of atmosphere that existed in 2019, even the partymen were skeptical about Congress’s performance and most of them would not give more than 20 seats to the party. In support of their claim, they would say except Rahul Gandhi no other senior leader even bothered to visit the state for the campaigning. Much needed support of campaign material or infrastructure was another big issue that remained unresolved. 

But as luck would have it, when leaders had given up, voters gave 44 seats to Congress. As a result, the party is in power as a constituent of Maha Vikas Aghadi government led by the Shiv Sena. Some of the important portfolios such as revenue, public works, energy are with their ministers.

It simply means people want the Congress, but those at the helm in the party affairs want it or not is a different question. It’s because for the last seven years the party did not have a full-fledged state executive. The last approved full-fledged executive body existed before 2015 when Manikrao Thakre was the state unit chief. After he stepped down ex-CM Ashok Chavan succeeded him and later Balasaheb Thorat, but there was no new executive body in place.

Normally, whenever the state unit of Congress gets a new president, a new executive is announced to assist him. The list of the members of the executive has the approval of the All India Congress Committee which ensures regional balance with representation to various sections of the society. In the absence of the newly approved executive, a few members from Thakre’s team were seen assisting Ashok Chavan and Balasaheb Thorat.

In February this year, Congress’s high command decided to appoint Nana Patole as the new head of the state Congress. While appointing him, Congress leadership decided to appoint Shivajirao Moghe, Basavaraj Patil, Kunal Patil, Praniti Shinde, Naseem Khan, and Chandrakant Handore as the executive presidents to assist Patole.

The list of new executive members was sent for Delhi’s approval a few months ago. Finally, the AICC has given its approval for 18 vice presidents, 65 general secretaries, and 104 secretaries. What kind of responsibility would be given to each of them is going to be an interesting issue.

While assessing the whole exercise, some partymen feel that the Congress leadership does not appear keen on developing new leadership. It becomes evident with the fact that a significant number of new members are political heirs of big leaders. According to them, no attention has been paid to the VJNTs which comprise several castes from nomadic tribes and sub-castes. For example, the party has shown no interest in developing leadership from the Vanjari community that has a large presence in Marathwada region and districts of Ahmednagar and Nashik. Most of the members of this community were followers of late BJP leader Gopinath Munde.

After Munde’s demise, his daughter Pankaja and nephew Dhananjay are engaged in a keen tussle to establish their leadership. Today, Pankaja is with the BJP and Dhananjay is in the NCP. The Congress has not even attempted to project someone as a leader to woo members of the community.

Surprisingly, if a section in the Congress is to be believed, some of the names suggested by the state chief Nana Patole were not accepted by the party high command. Congressmen from the state also feel that such a thing happens due to the gap of communication with the party in charge, appointed by the AICC. Most of the leaders, appointed to officiate as in charge of the state affairs are from the southern states who have a problem communicating in Hindi, and leaders from the state have a problem with English. Therefore, the party in charge takes considerable time to understand the local level politics.  It is going to be interesting to watch how the Congress deals with the most crucial issues of its rejuvenation in the coming years when its leaders say they are not taken seriously in this three-party government.