The recent announcement regarding the formation of the Punjab Lok Congress by former Chief Minister Amarinder Singh takes forward the march of a seasoned politician towards carving his own future. With christening his party as Lok Congress, the erstwhile Congress regional satrap decided to trudge on the path paved by several others in the party to prove their lineage with the parent organisation.

These leaders and their formations can be classified into three categories. One, who split from the party organisation, floated a separate party, struck electoral success and remained relevant. The second, belong to a category of those who in the backdrop of severe disagreement with the Congress, started an outfit to prove their political clout and eventually merged after achieving political objectives. In the third, are the ones who formed a new party but were unable to convert popularity into votes failing to establish credentials as the 'real' party.

Falling in the first category are parties like the Trinamool Congress, the Nationalist Congress Party, YSR Congress. The Trinamool came into being in 1998 as Mamata Banerjee found politics of the leaders of the State Congress unequal to the task of taking on the Communist Party of India (Marxist) –led Left Front in West Bengal. She moved away around the time when Congress was in transition with Sitaram Kesri holding the reins after the resignation of P V Narasimha Rao. She continued to plough the lonely furrow and after successive stupendous electoral victories in West Bengal, the party prepares for a large role in national politics.

A year later, the Nationalist Congress Party was formed under a different set of circumstances. Sharad Pawar along with PA Sangma and Tariq Anwar were thrown out from the Congress for raising the issue of Sonia Gandhi and her foreign origin ahead of the 1999 Lok Sabha polls. Pawar’s party won handsomely in his home state of Maharashtra and since then remained a major political force, with limited electoral victories in a few other states. Earlier in 1981, Pawar and others formed the Indian National Congress (Socialist) in Maharashtra, Goa, Kerala and Karnataka that merged with the party after a few years.

In the case of YSR Congress, the vaulting ambition of YS Jagan Mohan Reddy, son of Congress strongman and Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister Y S Rajasekhara Reddy popular as ‘YSR” ended his run in the Congress. His determined push to inherit the Chief Minister Chair after the death of his father in a helicopter accident was disliked by the Congress central leadership. Unwilling to wait, he formed the YSR Congress while expanding the initials to Yuva (Youth), Sramika (Workers) and Ryuthu (Farmers). After traversing the state to connect with the people, ‘Jagan’, captured people’s imagination and rode into office on the back of landslide victory in 2019 State Assembly polls. These three parties remain relevant and run governments in the states of West Bengal, Maharashtra and Andhra Pradesh, created after the separation of Telangana.

The other category includes a clutch of formations that were set up in specific states with the intent of the leader to prove grip over politics there quite like what Captain Amarinder Singh is attempting now.

Some prominent names include the All India Indira Congress (Tewari), Madhya Pradesh Vikas Congress, the Himachal Vikas Congress, Tamil Manila Congress, Tamizagha Rajiv Congress, Karnataka Congress Party, Arunachal Congress, Akhil Bharatiya Loktantrik Congress. All those behind the formation of a party claimed Congress heritage and reaping electoral harvest at different times.

The Tewari Congress formed by once party strongman Narayan Datt Tewari, Arjun Singh, Sheila Dikshit and Natwar Singh came after these leaders fell out over differences with Narasimha Rao. The nascent party won a few seats in the 1996 Lok Sabha polls, joined the United Front coalition government under H D Deve Gowda. After Kesri took over as the Congress president, Tiwari Congress merged with the parent organisation under a plan initiated by Congress president to reunite estranged party leaders and their formations.

MP Vikas Congress was formed by Madhav Rao Scindia after being denied a ticket by Narasimha Rao following the odium of the Hawala scandal. The party later returned to the Congress while former Communications Minister Sukh Ram expelled over allegations of corruption floated the Himachal Vikas Congress, joined hands with the BJP and much later did a ‘Ghar Wapsi’. Former Tamil Nadu stalwart GK Moopanar and P Chidambaram formed the Tamil Manila Congress as they disagreed with Narasimha Rao aligning with Jayalalitha’s AIADMK in 1996 polls. The party was part of the United Front Government only to merge with the Congress after Sonia Gandhi became the president. At present Moopnar’s son and former Union Minister GK Vasan revived the party once again. In the majority of the cases, these organisations were created due to political differences and once the point was established or objective achieved, these parties dissolved/merged with the main party.

Parties in the third category of those which could not make any electoral impact and quietly tiptoed way back into the Congress are many with a few like Haryana Janhit Congress of Kuldeep Bishnoi, son of former Haryana Chief Minister Bhajan Lal or the Rashtrawadi Samajwadi Party of Pranab Mukherjee being prominent ones.

Which of these categories will the Punjab Lok Congress occupy. Well, voters in Punjab would speak when the opportune time comes.

— KV Prasad is a senior journalist and has earlier worked with The Hindu and The Tribune. The views expressed are personal.

Read his other columns

(Edited by : Ajay Vaishnav)

First Published:Nov 8, 2021 4:16 PM IST