Interview Of The Week - S. P. JAISWAL
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‘Congress should contest polls on its own. Alliances should be avoided.’

When Sri Prakash Jaiswal, the Congress MP from Kanpur, received a surprise telephone call from 10, Janpath last Monday to cancel his London visit beginning next day, he had an inkling that something big was in the offing for him. A day later, the AICC general secretary in-charge of Uttar Pradesh, S K Shinde, informed him that he was replacing Salman Khurshid as the PCC chief of the country’s largest state.
A first time MP, 56-year-old Jaiswal has not held any senior-level organisational appointments in the party, except for a brief period when he crossed over to Congress (Tiwari) and was made the treasurer and vice-president of its UP unit. A backward caste Bania, Jaiswal’s objective of rejuvenating the party isn’t going to be easy. The PCC chief, who prides in being a grassroots man, spoke to SANJIV SINHA about his plans.

There are reports that you were chosen as PCC chief due to your proximity to Arjun Singh and N D Tiwari.
My appointment is a vindication for the party’s grassroots worker since unlike others I am one of them. It also perhaps has to do with my performance in the last Lok Sabha elections where I managed to defeat my BJP rival in what was regarded as a saffron ‘garh’. I was in the Congress (Tiwari) but that doesn’t necessarily mean that senior leaders who were part of that outfit influenced my selection. I have never been part of any faction, whether Congress (Tiwari) or any other... I have never had differences with anybody and never thought beyond the Nehru-Gandhi ideology.

You are being seen as a relative newcomer, with little organisational experience, especially at the senior level.
The charge of being new and inexperienced is untrue. If I don’t know the organisation, then I wonder who does (in UP). I have been in the party organisation for the last 23 years, mostly at the grassroots where it matters most. I was Kanpur District Congress Committee’s president for many years together. Unlike other leaders, my experience in organisational matters has been garnered at the lowest levels... I know what the cadre wants.

As PCC chief, what is be your priority.
The party workers have to be united so that the organisation can be strengthened. I feel the day the organisation unites and comes out strongly, the people of the state, who are fed up with BJP’s misrule and Samajwadi Party’s caste-based politics, will come to us. In fact, the people of the state are eagerly awaiting the Congress to strengthen itself quickly... The BJP, which is our main enemy, stands totally exposed today and the onus is on us not to let the people down.

Isn’t an uphill task. The Congress, in some areas, is virtually non-existent while in others it has been hit by large-scale infighting.
I agree that the organisation is not in a good shape... in some areas especially in eastern UP, it has collapsed while in other parts differences among partymen have seriously weakened it. We have to take everybody together. It is a difficult but possible task. A political organisation gets weak because its vote-bank gets depleted. It began with the demolition of Babri Masjid when the minorities left us, the forward castes were weaned away from us on the issue of Ram Mandir. All this has caused demoralisation in the rank and file. The party workers have to be motivated... I hope in my appointment they will since I am one of them. ‘‘Aa ab laut chalein’’ (Come, now lets return) will be my slogan.

Factional fighting has become the bane of Congress politics in the state. There are too many leaders — N D Tiwari, Jitendra Prasada, Ram Naresh Yadav — to contend with.
There are some differences, mainly of perception. I have great regard for the senior leaders from the state and that includes both Prasada and Tiwari. Since I don’t represent any particular faction, my effort will be to bring everybody together and build a consensus.

What about alliances and tie-ups in the context of next year’s assembly polls. Are you in favour of carrying forward your predecessor’s plan of reaching at some sort of understanding with parties like the Bahujan Samaj Party.
Its too early to say. However, I personally feel that the party should go it alone and try to stand on its own feet like in earlier times. Alliances should be avoided as far as possible.

Given the caste equations in the state, the Congress obviously doesn’t figure anywhere.
The Congress never believed in the caste or religion-based politics as practised by the SP, BSP and BJP. The party’s credo has always been to unite all castes/communities under an umbrella. And let me tell you, there is a change in UP politics against the division of society on basis of caste or religion.

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