When Congress outsmarted the BJP to reinstate its own Government in Arunachal Pradesh following the Supreme Court upturning the State Governor’s earlier decision to dissolve the Assembly, many political observers gushingly praised Congress’s political managers in Delhi.
It was reported that Sonia Gandhi had issued the mandate to do whatever it takes to reclaim the State. As always, there was a scurry of stalwarts in the Gandhi Durbar to claim credit. Then came the virtual coup of Friday when the Congress Chief Minister, Prem Khandu, moved across with 42 MLAs to the People’s Party of Arunachal (PPA), a part of the North-East Democratic Alliance (NEDA), a BJP-led front.
Caught off-guard, Congress at once blamed BJP and its leader Amit Shah. The party spokesperson made a most grandiose statement: “PPA is the illegitimate child of the BJP's diabolical design to decimate democracy”, perhaps not realising in doing so, he was in fact, admitting the weakness of his own party’s central leadership.
Without going into the usual debate about Rahul Gandhi’s hold on the party, it can be safely said that this is a huge embarrassment for the Congress high command. Whether the BJP engineered the defections or not is unimportant. It is clear that the party bosses in Delhi had neither a clue nor the capability to stall the denouement. However, this three-act drama does throw up some interesting leads on how the plot can play out in future.
First, the sub-nationalism of the North-East is quite a few shades different from that in other parts of the country. Most leaders of standing from the region will not be as enamored by the charm of a Lutyens’s bungalow and minor ministerial post in Delhi as politicians from the mainland. Therefore, it would be a mistake for Rahul Gandhi or Sonia Gandhi to think that Arunachal Pradesh Congress leaders would play supplicant to the dynasty as, say, Congressmen from Uttarakhand.
The Gandhis are not such awe-inspiring for people in the erstwhile NEFA (North East Frontier Agency) as they still are, to some extent, in the 'Hindi heartland' and other formerly Congress ruled States.
Sonia Gandhi perhaps understands this better, as more mature and committed aides advise her. Whereas Rahul is surrounded by a clutch of inexperienced associates who have very little understanding of mainstream politics, let alone what is happening in far-away Arunachal Pradesh.
As per various accounts Chief Minister Pema Khandu was quite put-off with the constant interference of Congress headquarters in various ministerial appointments and other matters of the party and Government. Rahul Gandhi and the power brokers of Akbar Road, spoilt by the obsequious favour-seekers around them, do not realise that every one cannot be ordered around as family retainers.
Rahul Gandhi had made a similar error of judgement with Hemanta Biswa Sarma whom he had kept waiting in Delhi for three days without granting an audience. Instead, Rahul banked upon Tarun Gogoi’s son Gaurav who is his bench buddy in Parliament.
Regional leaders, especially of resource deficient States, are realising they cannot deliver on their development promise, a key differentiator in elections nowadays, without help from the Centre. For that they are increasingly open to do business with the ruling party at the Centre, often by creating an equation of dynamic tension between them.
This is done either by an approach of selective collaboration like by Mamata Banerjee or by boarding a SPV (Special Purpose Vehicle) like NEDA (North-East Democratic Alliance) which is affiliated to the NDA yet placed at a respectable distance from the BJP.
This could be a clever way for Amit Shah to make forays into geographies where the BJP on its own cannot. By creating such platforms, regional parties can engage with the BJP and the NDA without straightaway jumping into bed with them.
This could become another variant of the “cooperative federalism” model of Prime Minister Narendra Modi that the Congress is carping about after their Arunachal Pradesh fiasco.