Karti Chidambaram's speech has some lessons for Congress and BJP too

The News Minute Editorial | January 24, 2015 | 05.30 pm IST“I wish to tell a bitter truth. The Congress will never form a government in Tamil Nadu in 2016.”This is how Karti Chidambaram begins the ‘bitter’ part of his address to a group of Congress workers how had gathered in Chennai. This was the first meeting of the G-67, a group formed by Karti Chidambaram that comprises of members who were born after 1967, in a sarcastic reference to the year in which Congress lost power in Tamil Nadu.The meeting and Karti’s 30-minute speech has angered the TN Congress Committee which has sent him a show cause notice asking him to explain the meeting and his comments.Karti Chidambaram didn’t seem to be perturbed at the notice and told many media houses that the TNCC President must have issued the notice in haste, without watching his whole speech.For the Congress party, perhaps the meeting was an issue of indiscipline. Karti’s repeated utterances that the Congress needs a face in Tamil Nadu, will obviously be seen by other Congress leaders as his uninhibited ambition to rise to the top. For a party that has many ‘seniors’ jostling for space, the G67 meeting and its agenda is of grave concern.Some media reports suggested that apart from voicing his ambitions in a veiled manner, Karti was also taking jibes at actor Khushboo who joined the party recently.The Congress as a party may have issues with his speech, and therefore the show cause notice, but there are issues raised by Karti Chidambaram in the speech that the party needs to look into with utmost seriousness.Karti in his speech points out that a survey was conducted in Namakkal which showed that 24% of the people said that they would vote for the DMK, another 24% for AIADMK, 13% for the Communist Party, 37% for BJP, and only 2% said that they would vote for the Congress Party.He then asks why people would feel like voting for the Congress party that is unwilling to take a stand on any issue in the state. “Opposing the BJP is our national strategy, but just opposing the BJP will not help us in Tamil Nadu. We need to tell the people how and why we are different from the Dravidian parties."His speech, largely repetitive, harps on two important points. He insists that the Congress lacks two things in Tamil Nadu. Unlike all Dravidian parties that have its main leaders or even a BJP that chants Modi’s name, the Tamil Nadu Congress has no leader. Karti gets applauded as he points out that it is not possible to sell a product that's not saleable anymore. What the Congress needs is a face, a CM candidate, someone the party can project and back on.The second point he raises is the lack of an ideology. Contesting against Dravidian parties like DMK, AIADMK and DMDK, the Congress has to be seen as an alternative, he asserts.“We have to develop a “core idea” before going to the polls. Dravidan parties had projected anti-Hindi as their core idea. Modi spoke of ending dynastic politics. The Congress is seen as secular, but secularism is not enough. We need to oppose the political culture of liquor and cinema. We should stand for employment generation,” he says.Karti Chidambaram may be trying to lead a revolt, G 67 may be his sly effort to project himself as a leader or perhaps he wants to oppose Khushboo’s rise in the party. Whatever his motives are, his thirty minute speech does have points that the Congress needs to consider, if it is looking for a revival in Tamil Nadu.Not just the Congress, the BJP too has a lesson to learn here. Lately, the BJP has been treating its state unit in Tamil Nadu, just like how the Congress High Command did. Decisions taken in Delhi that do not resonate in the state eventually made Congress an ‘untouchable’ in Tamil Nadu. While the BJP’s state unit has been trying to cultivate an image of being an alternative to Dravidian parties, the BJP central leadership’s friendly vibes to Jayalalithaa has sent confusing signals.TweetFollow @thenewsminute