Leader of the Congress Party in the Lok Sabha Mallikarjun Kharge speaks on the forthcoming Assembly polls in Karnataka, the demand for a separate Lingayat religion and rebuilding the Congress.
During the Congress Plenary, you said that the Congress can be defeated by the Congress itself, indicating different factions in the party. What’s the way out of such factionalism?
In a party, many times differences crop up. But after Mr. Rahul Gandhi took over, he is calling everybody and talking to everyone. He is telling everyone that you may have differences at the State or the district level, but forget them. You should be united to bring back the party. That’s why younger elements are coming, and he is taking advice from the older leaders and things are moving.
When we lost the 2014 elections, some people were panicking and saying, “Oh, only 44 seats!” That way we cannot do politics. In a democracy it happens. At one time the BJP only had two seats. We are ready to build our party and set aside our differences.
To avoid factionalism, the Congress doesn’t project a chief ministerial face. But these days elections are very Presidential in nature. Is it an advantage or a disadvantage not to have a CM face?
We have always fought on the party ideology and collective leadership. Even BJP, in some States may have shown a CM face, but in some other States they appointed or nominated afterwards. In Uttarakhand, Haryana and even Maharashtra they did like that. The Congress has always fought on party lines. Only in some cases where the High Command felt that there is wide acceptability or to bring about unity, a CM face has been projected. But we have always fought and won elections on party ideology and collective leadership.
Chief Minister Siddaramaiah has been accused of fanning regional aspirations, quite at odds with the Congress’ traditional political line.
It is not a question of raising passions. Whatever the local aspirations are there, he (Siddaramaiah) is just expressing them and supporting those which are congenial to the people of Karnataka and also to the country without harming the interest of the country and the State. It’s not coming in the way of the Constitution.
We have taken a developmental agenda and our aim is to spread the message of development throughout the State. Whatever we are doing, is it reaching the people will only be known by their reaction at public meetings or in the polls. When Rahulji (Congress president Rahul Gandhi) came to Karnataka, many expressed their happiness with the programmes of the State government.
The BJP has accused the Congress of dividing Hindu society by endorsing the Lingayats as a minority community.
It’s not Siddaramaiah or the Congress government in Karnataka that created this issue. It is the people themselves who represented this demand to him. They said the Lingayat religion, established by Basaveshwara in the 12th century, should be recognised separately. It is also the desire of the majority of the Swamis. The Karnataka government would not have endorsed it had there been opposition from the seers. After seeing this unity among the Lingayats over this, the BJP is panicking and making such allegations against the Congress of dividing Hindu society.
Basaveshwara’s principles are of equality and even at that time he preached socialism and secularism. He also asked downtrodden classes to join with him and that is the revolution he effected in Basava Kalyana. Allamprabhu, who headed the anubhava mantapa, was from the backward classes. At that time, upper class people were not in favour of taking people into their societal fold, and Basaveshwara created a new sect of the Lingayats, for which people want recognition.
The BJP should not create much noise at this, for when your vote bank is shifting, it does not do much good to blame your rival party. Such demands spring organically as society goes on; for example, demands for reservations or segmentation in reservation categories. Naturally every government will examine that and take a call.
How do you view the move to build a federal front, do you still see the Congress leading the Opposition?
It’s premature to say anything about the federal front now. Many regional parties have their own ideas and views, and grievances. In many of the States where they fight elections, we are the principal rival. For example in Telangana we are directly fighting with the Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS), in Kerala with the Communists, in Andhra with both the Telegu Desam Party (TDP) and the YSRCP. We are everywhere, and many regional parties will attack us too, but first, in the interests of the country, we must remove this RSS-backed BJP government. We have to discuss a meeting ground and we have to strategise taking into confidence other parties opposing the BJP.
Is there a move, in your knowledge, of Congress support to impeaching the Chief Justice of India?
There is no such move in Parliament. MPs have not prepared any memorandum or any move to collect signatures of 100 members. As far as I’m concerned and the Lok Sabha, this is not an issue that is before us.
This Parliament session has been a complete washout. As the leader of the Congress Legislative Party in the Lok Sabha, what is your view?
The BJP is subverting constitutional institutions. There is no democratic process or method they are using. They are bull-dozing their way through.
In Parliament, too, whenever we put questions, or motions or notices as per rule, the government never takes any interest and pressurises the Speaker to not admit it. It has been especially bad in the last 16 days.
