Facing one of the most difficult elections ahead, AICC General Secretary Janardan Dwivedi has come out with a bizarre proposition that it might have been prudent for the party not to have headed the UPA II Government after the 2009 General Elections.
Though he admitted that alliances are a compulsion, Dwivedi asserted that the Congress should have been in the Opposition after the last general elections.
"It would have been better if in 2009 after getting more support from the people than in 2004, the Congress should have called it quits so that someone else could
have formed the Government. The Congress could have played the role of a healthy Opposition," Dwivedi said.
His views assume significance at a time when the Congress is grappling with the issue of alliances and the Government headed by it is facing a 10-year-old anti-incumbency and strong corruption charges.
"You can not start a new experiment till you end the previous one. Since we did not close that chapter in 2009, we are pursuing the same path right now to face the challenges ahead," Dwivedi said in an interview to PTI.
Citing the rise of regional party leaders in the past two-three decades, he insisted, "They were not educated abroad or spoke fluent English. They were not even experts of new technology but still they got the support of people. Their only limitation was that they lacked a national perspective. But they did have the power to damage the major parties having national outlook," he added.
Asked whether the Congress should be practising alliance politics or focus on long term building of party, he said, "My personal opinion is the latter. But when you are part of an organisation, then the democratic norm is that we go by the opinion of the majority."
He expressed anguish that no political party these days has the "self confidence and the patience" to sit in the opposition and "dream big" and work for fulfilling
the dream.
At the outset, he made it clear that though he was speaking as party General Secretary, some of the views he has expressed were
the ones he has pitched for in the party.
"Earlier people used to get position after some hard work and sacrifice. Now people get so much immediately because of other reasons and no political party is untouched by this malaise," Dwivedi said.
Describing anti-incumbency as a historical factor, Dwivedi recalled that such a situation has emerged in Indian politics after a gap of every ten years since independence and cited the formation of non-Congress alliances in the 70s.
Citing the formation
of the Janata Party Government led Chaudhary Charan Singh and Moraji Desai, VP Singh Government in 1989 and H D Deve Gowda and I K Gujral Governments in 1997, he recalled that every time the Congress was voted back to power after alternative Governments were formed.
"There was an atmosphere of instability from 1996
to 1999 but the values of democracy and anti-communalism were never dead,"
he said. Dwivedi also
added that after ten years in government it is natural that one has to face all kinds of reactions.