VIJAY DEO JHA
Ranchi, Feb. 22: Rahul Gandhi delivered a blunt message to the Congress ministers in Jharkhand as he cautioned them not to forget that workers made them ministers and the same worker can throw them out from their ministerial position.
This was a key takeaway of three days long Madhuban conclave of the party attended by 147 delegates, including former and present MLAs and MPs, office bearers, and others.
Rahul Gandhi who addressed the conclave online on Tuesday afternoon minced no words in saying that the Congress ministers working in an isolated manner and party workers being ignored by them were something which was not acceptable to him. What Rahul Gandhi meant to his ministers was that they must accord priority to the party and the workers rather than a servile junior partner in the government. He said that ministers would have to make sure the party workers feel that this is their government. The Congress has four ministers in the Hemant Soren-led JMM-Congress-RJD government.
In fact, the three days Chintan Shivir, that concluded on Tuesday, was called for the repositioning of the Congress in Jharkhand both organizationally as well as a partner in the government. The party said that the conclave was called to discuss different issues of Jharkhand besides assessing the strengths and weaknesses of the party ahead of the 2024 general election and the assembly election in Jharkhand. There was a subtle message for the JMM and coalition head chief minister Hemant Soren that the Congress is neither submissive nor weak.
If Rahul Gandhi sniffed a sense of alienation among workers towards their ministers, party insiders said that there is a complete lack of a sense of belongingness towards the government.
“The JMM doesn’t share the credit of the good works of the government with the Congress. The JMM is not even keen to appreciate the good works of the departments headed by the Congress ministers. We are like estranged bedfellows,” said a senior Congress leader who attended the Chintan Shivir.
Another senior leader confided what AICC general secretary and state Congress in-charge Avinash Pande said about the ongoing alliance with the JMM in Jharkhand.
“We are in alliance not because of any compulsion or weakness. We shall stay firm in the alliance and we must,” the leader quoted Pande saying this during the meeting. Pande is stated to be not happy with the performance of the government. In the decision-making process, the opinion of Congress is hardly taken and its concern hardly addressed. The departments headed by the Congress ministers hardly get attention. Hemant Soren takes decisions keeping the political interests of his party in his mind.
Despite being in the government, Congress is not in a position to implement even a single promise of its manifesto. During three days of meetings, the Congress resolved that it would persuade the chief minister to run the government on the basis of the common minimum programme.
“It is time to think if we have nothing to showcase before people despite, we are in the government. A good policy framework, mutual understanding and equal participation are very much required for a coalition government. And this is what precisely we want,” said an MLA of the Congress.
