Mumbai: Newly appointed Maharashtra Congress President Harshwardhan Sapkal said the party is not as weak in the state as last year’s assembly results suggest, but added that he has plans to rebuild the middle-order leadership to fix the lacunae.
Speaking to ThePrint Thursday, Sapkal, a former one-time MLA from Buldhana in the Vidarbha region, said, “We have good leaders, and the voters are also with us. It is the middle-order that needs to be strengthened.”
He said he will make new appointments to fill the gaps in the middle-order positions, empower its leadership, and replace those who are not working effectively.
“In short, we are going to fix the issues of coordination and accountability,” he said.
Sapkal took charge Tuesday as Maharashtra Congress President, succeeding four-time Nana Patole. His appointment comes at a time when the Congress is at its worst in the state, having posted its most dismal performance in Maharashtra to date, winning just 16 of the 288 seats in the Assembly elections in November.
When the Congress named Sapkal as the state president, many within the party called it an unusual choice as the leader isn’t as well known with the party cadre in Maharashtra. But, several also said it was an appropriate decision to have a man who has worked his way up in the administration to helm the party at this juncture.
Sources in the state unit said his name was also discussed for the position when Patole was appointed as Maharashtra Congress chief in 2021.
The leader, who has worked his way up within the Congress from a sarpanch to an MLA firmly believes that the party’s electoral performance in Maharashtra is not an indicator of its strength in the state.
“It is often circumstantial. We are not as weak as our numbers suggest,” he said. “For example, in 2019, before the Pulwama attack, everyone was saying the BJP under Narendra Modi will not even get a hundred seats (in the Lok Sabha election).”
The BJP had a thumping victory in that election with a resounding 303 seats.
‘Fight against perception and ideology’
Sapkal said the BJP is trying to trap the Congress into perceptions that it has created about the party.
“This so-called narrative that the BJP has set about the Congress not having any money, about the middle class not being with the Congress, about urban voters not being with us—our priority is to get out of this trap,” Sapkal said.
He calls these qualifiers “perceptions created by BJP” because on the ground, there is still a lot of anger against the BJP government.
“The are issues of farmers not getting a fair price, there’s joblessness, and the biggest problem in Maharashtra today is social disharmony. The division into castes and religions and people wanting to even transact with grocers and shopkeepers only of their community,” Sapkal said.
On the Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA), Sapkal said alliances will be decided at the time of elections. There have been talks of the possibility of local body polls being held in Maharashtra this year, but Sapkal said it is unlikely.
“The BJP doesn’t want to hold local body polls. It wants to disrupt the democratic systems at the local levels and concentrate power at the upper level,” he said.
He added that fighting agricultural distress, unemployment, and disharmony will be his priorities as Maharashtra Congress president and under him, the party will organise ‘Sadbhavana Sammelans’ (gatherings to talk about goodwill) across the state.
(Edited by Sanya Mathur)
