ताज्या घडामोडी - भाग २७

पुतळ्याचं राजकारण कशासाठी

Under the able leadership of Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru, Congress continued to govern the country as India's largest political party in the post Independence era. Nehru ensured that Congress successfully played the role of governing a newly formed country with public support. It continued to win elections after elections. But after Pandit Nehru's death in 1964, party started to face internal crisis. There were differences among the top leadership of the Congress about how to take the party forward. These differences escalated to such a level that there was complete chaos within the Congress. So much so that many of the leaders parted ways with the Congress and established their own parties like Kerela Congress, Orissa Jane Congress, Bangla Congress, Utkal Congress, Bharatiya Kranti Dal, etc. Congress was disintegrating from the core !! Among those who stayed were dominant leaders like Indira Gandhi ( the then Congress President), K.Kamraj and Morarji Desai. Kamraj and Desai were the powerful leaders of the right-wing group within the Congress and were ideological rivals of Indira. Amidst this, in 1967, a new coalition, under the banner of the Samyukta Vidhayak Dal, won control over several states in the Hindi belt. This gave ammunition to Indira's rivals within the party to challenge her leadership. Indira, for the politically ruthless stateswoman she was, could not come to terms with Kamraj and Desai and she too decided to part with the Congress. The Congress was then split into two parties : Indian National Congress (O) and Indian National Congress (I).The split can in some ways be seen as a left-wing/right-wing division.Indira wanted to use a populist agenda in order to mobilize popular support for the party while Kamraj and Desai stood for a more right-wing agenda. Indian National Congress (O) was led first by Kamraj and later by Morarji Desai. The "O" in its name stood for Organisation/Old Congress. Some use to call it the Original Congress. Indian National Congress(I) was led by none other than Indira Gandhi. The "I" in the name stood for Indira. It was also known as INC(R) R stands for Requisition. It soon came to be known as the New Congress. In the All India Congress Committee, 446 of its 705 members walked over to Indira's side. This created a belief among Indians that Indira's Congress was the Real Congress (INC-R) After the separation of the two parties, there was also a dispute about the party logo. The "Old Congress" retained the party symbol of a pair of bullocks carrying a yoke while Indira's breakaway faction were given a new symbol of a cow with suckling calf by the Election Commission as the party election symbol. At the 1971 General Election, the INC(O) won only 10% of the vote and just 16 Loksabha seats against 44% of the vote and 352 seats for Indira's Congress. It was a clear mandate from the people of the country in favour of Indira. In the post-Emergency election in 1977, the INC (O) decided to contest under the banner of Janata Alliance which inflicted crushing defeat for Indira's Party. However, the defeat was attributed to the imposing of emergency. The notable fact was that the total vote share of Congress (O) in 1977 was almost halved from 1971 and their seat count reduced to 13. Later the same year, INC(O) formally merged with the Bhartiya Lok Dal, Bharatiya Jan Sangh, Samajwadi Party and others to form the Janata Party. However, Indira's National Congress came back to power within just three years in 1980 with a total of 377 seats out of 543 while the Janata Party was reduced to only 17 seats ! As a result of this convincing performance again on the national level, the Election Commission recognized Indira's Congress as the Real Congress at the national level and allowed it to call itself the Indian National Congress (without any suffix) and restored the frozen Congress symbol of two bullocks to it. Thus, Indira's Congress (I) became the Indian National Congress !

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