Mainstream WeeklyHas the Congress learnt any lessons from its awful defeat in the Haryana Assembly elections, last month? Or rather is it going to repeat the same mistake in Maharashtra Assembly elections slated for the 20th of this month? It appears so.
We may still believe that Leader of Opposition in the Lok Sabha Rahul Gandhi, is sincere about an inclusive Congress and an equally accommodative INDIA alliance, committed to ensuring its joint victory to defeat the BJP at the prospective Assembly elections in Maharashtra and Jharkhand. But the discordant notes emerging from the three-party alliance of Shiv Sena (UBT) of Udhav Thackeray, NCP-Sharad of Sharad Pawar and the Congress, the Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA), forbode a repeat of Haryana defeat at the hands of the wily BJP duly assisted by the Election Commission. The marvellous victory of the MVA against the BJP led three-party alliance, Mahayuti in the Lok Sabha polls earlier this year, seems to have filled the MVA with over confidence, without taking into account that the BJP being in the government has the entire bureaucratic class lined up behind it with the Maharashtra Director General of Police (DGP) Rashmi Shukla under a cloud of suspicion. And while the MVA leaders have formally lodged a complaint and sought her removal during the coming polls, it would be na