Replete with symbolism, the forthcoming AICC session in Ahmedabad is expected to galvanise the Congress party that is facing an existential crisis in Gujarat and a continued series of electoral debacles across the country.
The AICC session is being held in Gujarat after 64 years in a year that marks the centenary year of the lone presidential term of Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi and the 150th birth anniversary of Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel. The party will hold the Congress Working Committee (CWC) meeting at Sardar Patel Memorial in Shahibaug on April 8. The AICC session will be held on the “banks of Sabarmati” on April 9.
The congruence of Patel’s 150th anniversary and Congress’s choice of holding the AICC session at this venue hold more symbolic value as the party had earlier helplessly allowed the ruling BJP to chip away Sardar’s legacy and de-facto use it against the Congress in a big way over the last decade and a half. Some go on to argue that refocussing on Sardar may well calm the Patidar sentiment in Gujarat, that has been largely against the Congress since the days of Madhavsinh Solanki’s implementation of Kshatriya, Harijan, Adivasi, Muslim (KHAM) social engineering to win 149 assembly seats in 1985.
Party leaders otherwise refuse to attach such significance to the event on record. “You cannot view Sardar Patel through the lenses of one particular community or the other,” reacted Congress spokesperson Manish Doshi. “For starters, he was and always will be a leader for the nation and the ‘architect of India’ and, yes, this session is bringing together the celebration of two historical events but that cannot be viewed from such a narrow prism,” he added.
Speaking anonymously some, however, admit that over the years, the support of the upper castes has waned for the Congress in the state and the party could do little when the BJP launched an aggressive attempt to sever Patel’s Congress legacy and capitalise on his farmer background. As a matter of fact, Rahul Gandhi, during his last visit to Gujarat, had sought to know why the upper caste votes were not coming the Congress’ way in spite of apparent disaffection with the ruling dispensation.
For the records, the then Gujarat chief minister and BJP’s prime ministerial candidate Narendra Modi had sent out emissaries across the country to collect iron pieces from the farm tools between October 31, 2013 and January 26, 2014 from farmers which were to be used in the tallest statue of the world –– the Statue of Unity at Kevadia.
“We need iron to commemorate the iron man and that too iron used in farming because, after all, Sardar Patel was the son of a farmer,” Modi had said while addressing a conference at Gandhinagar in June 2013.
Statue of Unity, since unveiled, has become a focal point for the Union government’s myriad programmes on one hand and a mantlepiece for the BJP to trumpet its respect for Sardar over that of the Congress.
The AICC session is being held in Gujarat after 64 years in a year that marks the centenary year of the lone presidential term of Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi and the 150th birth anniversary of Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel. The party will hold the Congress Working Committee (CWC) meeting at Sardar Patel Memorial in Shahibaug on April 8. The AICC session will be held on the “banks of Sabarmati” on April 9.
The congruence of Patel’s 150th anniversary and Congress’s choice of holding the AICC session at this venue hold more symbolic value as the party had earlier helplessly allowed the ruling BJP to chip away Sardar’s legacy and de-facto use it against the Congress in a big way over the last decade and a half. Some go on to argue that refocussing on Sardar may well calm the Patidar sentiment in Gujarat, that has been largely against the Congress since the days of Madhavsinh Solanki’s implementation of Kshatriya, Harijan, Adivasi, Muslim (KHAM) social engineering to win 149 assembly seats in 1985.
Party leaders otherwise refuse to attach such significance to the event on record. “You cannot view Sardar Patel through the lenses of one particular community or the other,” reacted Congress spokesperson Manish Doshi. “For starters, he was and always will be a leader for the nation and the ‘architect of India’ and, yes, this session is bringing together the celebration of two historical events but that cannot be viewed from such a narrow prism,” he added.
Speaking anonymously some, however, admit that over the years, the support of the upper castes has waned for the Congress in the state and the party could do little when the BJP launched an aggressive attempt to sever Patel’s Congress legacy and capitalise on his farmer background. As a matter of fact, Rahul Gandhi, during his last visit to Gujarat, had sought to know why the upper caste votes were not coming the Congress’ way in spite of apparent disaffection with the ruling dispensation.
For the records, the then Gujarat chief minister and BJP’s prime ministerial candidate Narendra Modi had sent out emissaries across the country to collect iron pieces from the farm tools between October 31, 2013 and January 26, 2014 from farmers which were to be used in the tallest statue of the world –– the Statue of Unity at Kevadia.
“We need iron to commemorate the iron man and that too iron used in farming because, after all, Sardar Patel was the son of a farmer,” Modi had said while addressing a conference at Gandhinagar in June 2013.
Statue of Unity, since unveiled, has become a focal point for the Union government’s myriad programmes on one hand and a mantlepiece for the BJP to trumpet its respect for Sardar over that of the Congress.
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