HYDERABAD, May 4: Union minister Jairam Ramesh today said the top Congress leaders had failed in political communication and had not aggressively countered BJP’s campaign to project UPA as a corrupt regime.
He also slammed former ally DMK by calling it “ungrateful” and dubbed its then minister T R Baalu as an “unmitigating disaster”.
While anti-incumbency is something the Congress has to counter after being in power for ten years, Ramesh said, “We have not been successful in political communication. Political communication does not take place at the last minute. You have to engage in political communication over a period of time. I think the Congress has been hurt by that.”
He admitted that 2G, Commonwealth Games and other scandals certainly hurt the Congress prospects.
“I always believed that one of the foundations of politics is communication and communication from the very top…By the ‘sherpas’ alone. So, political communication is very, very important but unfortunately we were found lacking,” Ramesh said.
“The BJP mounted an aggressive campaign thanks to CAG and hyperactive judiciary; civil society jumped on to the bandwagon and I think for a period we (Congress) did not show the type of aggression we should have shown,” he said.
As for the 2014 elections, Ramesh said he was “somewhat disappointed” with the attitude of the DMK (which did not have an alliance with the Congress in the just concluded polls in Tamil Nadu).
“DMK got a lot out of the Congress. Earlier, DMK government could not have survived and lasted five years without the support of the Congress. The DMK got the portfolios it wanted (in the UPA) and pretty much behaved in the manner they wanted,” he said.
In UPA-I, when Baalu was Union Minister for Surface Transport, the National Highway Authority of India, which came under his Ministry, had five chairmen.
“And he (Baalu) was (also) Minister for Environment and Forests…Mr(A) Raja (the then Telecom Minister)…I know what they did,” the senior Congress leader said.
“I think the DMK could have been a little more aware of the debt that it owes to the Congress. I think it was unfortunate what it did for the Congress and considering the tremendous regard and respect that Mrs (Sonia) Gandhi has for Mr (M) Karunanidhi, I think DMK were ungrateful,” Ramesh said.
Asked if Prime Minister Manmohan Singh should have firmly put his foot down vis-a-vis allocation of portfolios for DMK – which was part of UPA-I and till March last year of UPA-II when they quit on the issue of Sri Lankan Tamils – nominees, he said there are compulsions of alliance politics and he (Ramesh) was not privy to what the discussions were.
“But I can tell you Baalu was unmitigating disaster as a Minister for Surface Transport and as a Minister for Environment and Forests,” he said, and noted the “controversies” surrounding Raja and Dayanidhi Maran which are “the facts that are in the public domain.”
“I think, in retrospect, I feel let down by the attitude that DMK had. I think they (DMK) took the Congress for granted and they used the Congress,” he said. (PTI)
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