At 77, veteran Congress leader Sushilkumar Shinde, the Congress candidate for the Solapur Lok Sabha seat, sets a schedule that would put a politician half his age to shame. From hitting the campaign trail at the crack of dawn to receiving constituents well past midnight, Mr. Shinde tells The Hindu on how he proposes to make his political comeback and resurrect the Congress in their once-traditional stronghold.
You have said this will be your last election. What prompted you to enter the poll fray one last time?
There was a pervasive feeling of shock among my constituents after I was defeated in the 2014 Lok Sabha election despite having an unbroken track record of victory. To avenge that defeat, I have stepped into the arena again. I been winning in this area [Solapur], be it in the Assembly or Parliamentary elections, since 1978.
Do you find a dramatic change in the social equations in your constituency, with new variables threatening your hold?
My defeat is 2014 was purely accidental as there was a so-called ‘wave’ [in favour of Prime Minister Narendra Modi]. And as my campaign intensifies with each passing day, I find that the effect of this ‘Modi wave’ has worn off because the ruling [Bharatiya Janata Party] government has utterly failed to fulfill the promises made to the electorate.
To what extent will caste compulsions dictate the battle for Solapur?
As a candidate for the Congress, I am fighting to preserve secularism as defined in the Constitution and rise above caste and religious compulsions. In Solapur, we are witnessing a three-cornered fight with the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) propping up a religious leader [Dr. Jai Siddheshwar Shivacharya]. Then there is [Vanchit Bahujan Aghadi leader] Prakash Ambedkar, the grandson of Babasaheb Ambedkar, who has forged an alliance with the All India Majlis-e-Ittehad-ul-Muslimeen, which is a communal party. I stand in between them, committed to secularism.
How seriously will Prakash Ambedkar queer your pitch?
Prakash Ambedkar is just a vote-breaker and I cannot fathom why he is contesting from here. People have been saying for long that he is the BJP’s ‘B-team’, doing their bidding covertly. I think it is obvious now.
The BJP candidate has a large following in the critical Lingayat and Padmashali vote bases. To what extent will it affect your chances?
Earlier, these communities used to align with the BJP. We have been working with them and I am confident of securing support among large sections of the Lingayat community. But I am not overtly worried about such micro-factors like who is eating into a vote-bank. I see a phenomenal response during my rallies and sense that people do not want a re-run of the BJP’s poor governance.
The BJP has exploited the internal problems of the Congress and NCP to recruit young leaders from established political families of the Opposition. Why has the Congress-NCP alliance not prevented this exodus?
The BJP doesn’t have candidates, and is hence poaching candidates from us and the NCP. At times, people are attracted to a new government…when Indira Gandhi was defeated in 1977, there was great enthusiasm about the Janata Dal. But in 1980, when Ms. Gandhi rebounded to power with a huge margin, all those who left the Congress to join the Janata Dal came back to the Congress. I do not want to take their names (smiles).
The BJP appears to lay great stress on national security as is evident from their election manifesto. As former Union Minister for Home Affairs, how do you see their handling of key security issues?
The BJP has mishandled the Kashmir issue. 40 CRPF personnel were killed in Pulwama. Two to three jawans are dying in Jammu & Kashmir each day… When I was Home Minister, I visited Srinagar’s Lal Chowk and the traders told me business was good. Today, I dare any BJP leader to go and visit Lal Chowk. Unless you have a dialogue with Kashmiris, there will be no solution to this problem. And you cannot always pin the blame on security lapses. This is also true for Naxal-afflicted areas. It was the Congress that reined in Naxalism in Telangana. Security operations must be balanced by development works and dialogue.
As a long-serving Union Minister for Power [January 2006 to June 2012], what do you think of the Modi government’s UJALA Scheme?
The BJP-led Central government makes tall claims about 100% electrification whereas so many areas in States like Uttar Pradesh are bereft of electricity. It was our government [the Congress-led UPA] that completed the electrification of 18,000 villages. The UPA government had launched four major projects of 4,000 MW, but the BJP scrapped it.
