The bone of contention is the J & K Pradesh Congress President Tariq Hameed Karra who is from Kashmir. The trigger for the present crisis in J & K Congress party is his statement, in the aftermath of Pahalgam terrorist attack, that India should not have any confrontation with Pakistan. This was against the Congress Working Committee stand and one the party took in the all party meeting. This gave BJP fresh ammunition to hit the Congress in the Jammu region.
Possibly for the first time Jammu and Kashmir units are divided along communal and regional lines. He does not have either a nationalistic approach or a broader and wider perspective claim his detractors who are finding the situation in Jammu sliding badly.
They say the Congress Party has never had communal overtones and this is making it difficult for the Congress to fight the BJP in Jammu. A classic example is the recently held elections in Jammu and Kashmir where the Congress party failed to take on the BJP and despite all expectations it put up a pathetic performance which shocked everyone.
The bone of contention is the J & K Pradesh Congress President Tariq Hamid Karra who is from Kashmir. The trigger for the present crisis in j & K Congress party is his statement, in the aftermath of Pahalgam terrorist attack, that India should not have any confrontation with Pakistan. This was against the Congress Working Committee stand and one the party took in the all party meeting.
The Jammu unit of the Congress Party is demanding a PCC President from Jammu, failing that they want a separate committee along the lines of Mumbai regional Congress committee even though there is a Maharashtra Pradesh Congress committee.
The main reason is they do not want a Kashmir centric narrative which is the hallmark of Karra but the problem is that no one in New Delhi is listening to the grievances of the Jammu unit and their problems with the PCC President.
The AICC in charge Nasir Hussain is virtually invisible and does not appear to be doing anything to resolve the problems within the congress.
Karra is a Rahul Gandhi appointee but the problem is that Rahul Gandhi takes decisions without doing due diligence and once having taken a decision he does not reverse that decision.
Karra is a direct import from the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and was instrumental in plotting the downfall of the Ghulam Nabi Azad government in Jammu and Kashmir over the Amaranth controversy.
After Karra left the PDP in protest against Mehbooba joining hands with the BJP he was brought into the Congress by Rahul Gandhi who first made him a CWC member and then the PCC President.
He knows neither the Congress culture, nor has a wider national or even state perspective. He has a Kashmir-centric separatist outlook and this is the core problem agitating the Jammu Congress.
He says that the BJP is exploiting the communal overtones and this has worked to the advantage of the BJP. And in Kashmir it’s The National Conference (NCP) or Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) so the Congress party has been caught between the devil and the deep sea.
Rahul Gandhi of late has been speaking of getting rid of BJP sleeper cells in the Congress in various states and has promised the party units that he will sack the sleeper units.
There are similar charges in the Jammu unit of the Congress which surfaced recently but so far there is no action.
It would be only fair for Rahul Gandhi to instruct the AICC incharge of J&K to investigate and identify the sleeper cells within the state unit.
But Rahul Gandhi makes grand bombastic speeches but his delivery system is more than poor.
Renu Mittal
Renu Mittal is a veteran Journalist of India. She is reporting on the Congress Party affairs since 1983.