HAND REACHES OUT IN HOPE

The Congress has tried to remedy what were seen as its problems. This includes having a non-Gandhi as party president and making sacrifices to hold together the INDIA bloc. However, newer problems like lack of money and fissures within the opposition do not make the Congress’s fight for survival any easier

- SONI MISHRA

On April 3, when Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge walked into the narrow lanes of Usmanpur in North East Delhi to launch the party’s ‘Ghar Ghar Guarantee’ programme, it was also a trip down memory lane.

It was in this very area nearly five decades ago that the Congress’s hand symbol was used in an election for the first time. It was for a byelection from the Ghonda assembly seat—wherein Usmanpur lies—to the then Metropolitan Council in 1978. After the Congress split in 1977, and when the Devaraj Urs faction took the ‘cow and calf’ symbol, Indira Gandhi chose the hand.

And if she was looking to make a comeback after her loss in 1977, the Congress finds itself in an even more critical situation now.

Take, for instance, North East Delhi. The constituency of slums and resettlement colonies was once a Congress stronghold. It now votes AAP in the assembly and BJP in the Lok Sabha elections. The BJP has once again fielded popular Bhojpuri singer and actor Manoj Tiwari from the seat, which is home to a sizeable population of migrants from eastern Uttar Pradesh and Bihar.

But with the arrest of Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal, the Congress sniffs a chance to win back the constituency. Hence the decision to launch its ‘Ghar Ghar Guarantee’ programme from the area. As part of the outreach effort, the party is distributing guarantee cards that list the party’s five main poll promises. While Kharge launched the initiative in Usmanpur, Rahul Gandhi did so on the same day in Wayanad, from where he is contesting. This, said a senior Congress leader, was done to balance north and south.