Five-time MP from Mumbai and AICC general secretary Gurudas Kamat’s decision to resign from the primary membership of the party and retire from active politics has exposed unprecedented infighting within the Mumbai Congress ranks and the party’s lack of preparedness for the crucial February 2017 elections to the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC).
In what came as a surprise, 62-year-old Kamat on Monday night announced his resignation from his primary membership from the Congress and his decision to retire from active politics.
“Over the last more than 44 yrs I have worked with most of you and served the Congress. For several months now I have felt I need to take a backseat to enable others to get the Opportunity. I met Hon Cong President about 10 days ago and expressed a desire to resign. Subsequently I sent letters to both Soniaji and Rahulji that I would like to exit. Since there was no reply I have formally informed that I would like to retire from politics,” Kamat said in a statement released to the media.
Sources close to outgoing Congress leader told “The Pioneer” on Tuesday that Kamat, who was close to late Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi and had come up within party through youth Congress ranks, was feeling “suffocated” after having been “side-lined” within the party for several months.
“Being a known face and having a sizeable following within the party ranks in the city, Kamat wanted to contribute in his own way to the party’s success in the 2017 BMC elections.He was upset extremely for having been virtually ignored by Congress vice president Rahul Gandhi during his two visits to Mumbai this year. Gandhi was depending increasingly on the current MRCC president Sanjay Nirupam, who has taken full control of the city party set up with the help of former Chief Minister and State Congress chief Ashok Chavan and AICC general secretary-in-charge of Maharashtra Mohan Prakash,” a senior party functionary close to Kamat.
Other sources within the Mumbai Congress meanwhile said that the party set-up was in a total disarray and confusion ahead of the February 2017 BMC polls.
Though Rahul had – during his visit to Mumbai between January 14 and 16-- interacted with leaders of various factions in an effort to stem infighting within the party ranks, his efforts do not seem yielded any results.
It may be recalled that days prior to Rahul’s visit to the metropolis in January this year, two MlAs from Mumbai, Naseem Khan and Aslam Shaikh, had engaged in a heated war-of-words and almost came to blows within “Rajiv Gandhi Bhavan”, the MRCC office in south Mumbai.
That there is considerable resentment within the Mumbai Congress ranks against the style of functioning of the current city party president Sanjay Nirupam, whom the Congress vice president had given a “clean chit” in January this year over controversial articles which showed members of the Gandhi family in a poor light were published in the party's mouthpiece "Congress Darshan".
There are at least four major influential camps within Mumbai Congress - one headed by MRCC President Sanjay Nirupam, another headed by former Union Minister of State for IT and Communications Milind Deora, third headed by former Maharashtra ministers Kripashankar Singh and Naseem Khan and fourth one by Gurudas Kamat who has now resigned from the party.
Such is the sorry state of affairs that there is hardly any communication or co-ordination among the four camps. The camps headed by Milind, Kripashankar and Kamat are cut up with Nirupam. Nirupam’s act of reorganising the city party set up by upgrading the ward-level units into block-level units and nominating his supporters as the office bearers on these block-level committees has not gone well with leaders of the three camps. Former MlA Krishna Hegde had spoken openly against Nirupam for appointing supporters as block presidents.
Mumbai’s former Congress MP Priya Dutt, who enjoys considerable following among party workers and people in north-west Mumbai, does not also get along well with Nirupam. Informed sources said that Priya had also been opposing Nirupam’s style of functioning as the MRCC president.
So much so that various factions within the Mumbai Congress have complained to the Congress high command about Nirupam’s “dictatorial way” of functioning and how he was ignoring senior party city party leaders like Kamat, Milind Deora, Kripa and Priya, who are considered “loyalists” in the party. What has annoyed the loyalist camps is the fact that “outsider” Nirupam, who came from the Shiv Sena, has taken full control of the Mumbai with the active support of another “outsider” and current AICC general secretary-in-charge of Maharashtra Mohan Prakash, who had quit the JD(U) and joined the Congress in May 2002.
“It is time that the Congress high command intervenes and stems the dissension within the city Congress set-up. Given that the ruling BJP and Shiv Sena are at logger heads and are bound to contest the BMC polls independents, the Congress has an opportunity to do well in the polls. For that, the party should set its house in order and bring about unity among the various factions. Otherwise, the Congress will be wiped out in the BMC polls,” a senior Congress leader said.
Currently, the Congress does not even one lok Sabha seat --out of the total six seats in Mumbai, while it accounts for six Assembly seats in the metropolis, where there are in all 36 seats. The Congress’ current strength in the 227-member BMC is 51. If the dissensions within the Congress are to continue in a manner as it is happening now, it will virtually be a straight between the Shiv Sena and BJP in the February 2017 BMC polls.