One of the major challenges we face today is that our service delivery mechanisms are very inefficient. What is provided for does not reach the beneficiaries. This is one area we must pay more attention to although service delivery in a federal system is mostly with the state government. For example, huge sums are spent on subsidising food grains but that does not reach the BPL beneficiaries or the really needy. Also, the Prime Minister for the first time is setting up a cell to monitor delivery mechanisms. I have always believed that people are solutions, they are the best medium to implement government programmes and policies.

•SEEMA CHISHTI: Tell us about your UP experience during the recent elections?

I was made party in charge of UP after the disastrous Assembly elections. We have been out of power in UP since 1989 and so the organisation had collapsed. People who had grassroots support either went to the BSP or the SP. It was a challenging task. We chose 35 viable candidates for the Lok Sabha elections and we hinted that they could go ahead and start work, alliance or no alliance. We then wove the organisation around these candidates. Of the 35 candidates we chose, 18 won. Mr Rahul Gandhi was very keen that we build up our own party—how long can one walk on crutches? The whole effort has been to build the party. We had discussions with Samajwadi Party (SP). We tried to negotiate but that did not come off. People were fed up of regional parties, be it SP or BSP. I thought that the ground reality favoured Congress and we had nothing to lose—we had only nine Lok Sabha seats. So we might as well take a risk. It paid off.

•COOMI KAPOOR: Why wasn’t the man responsible for the UP success included in the UPA Cabinet?

That is an old story. In 2003, when I could not form the government in MP, I had said that there should be some kind of accountability and that I would not hold any government position for the next 10 years. That self-imposed exile will end in 2013. Till then, I am in the party.

•UNNI RAJEN SHANKER: Now that your experiment has been successful in UP and partially in Bihar, are you going to extend it to other states?

If the Congress has to go beyond 272, it cannot achieve that without fighting most of the seats and unless and until we break ground in UP and Bihar, it won’t happen. The Congress’s Panchmarhi resolution said Congress should go it alone but later it was amended. My own feeling is, when a post-poll alliance is possible, why go for pre-poll alliances? Transfer of votes is not easy—for instance, the upper caste vote cannot be transferred to Lalu Prasad. Similarly, it is difficult to transfer Congress vote to BSP but BSP votes can transfer to Congress.

•J.P. YADAV: Do you think the results marked the beginning of the end of the regional parties?

I would not call it the end of regional parties but yes, a decline of regional parties. Regional parties are basically caste-based parties. They have peaked, they can only decline now. People are once again looking at national alternatives rather than regional parties. But we cannot write them off because in state elections, they will have a considerable say.   

For any pan-Indian political party, there are national issues and regional issues. There have been Congress chief ministers who have raised regional issues quite effectively. Mrs Sonia Gandhi has been very supportive of the regional leadership. In Congress, we don’t believe in caste-based politics, though we do take into consideration the caste composition of any constituency while deciding on candidates for elections. People are fed up of caste-based politics. I think in 2014, we will have to go back to what Indira Gandhi once said, “Na jaat par, na paat par, button dabao haath par.”

•RAVISH TIWARI: Why did the Congress do so badly in the MP assembly elections, its second consecutive defeat?

We did not prepare ourselves as well as we should have in the Vidhan Sabha elections. The BJP did not win, we lost. We made certain mistakes because of which we could not win.

•AMITABH SINHA: What is the Congress strategy vis-a-vis former allies like Lalu Prasad Yadav?

I am a great admirer of Lalu Prasad Yadav to the extent that I have people telling me that I have become Digvijay Yadav instead of Digvijay Singh! He is one of the greatest political brains in the country. But if Congress has to grow in Bihar, it has to grow on its own. Still, Soniaji has great regard for Lalu Yadav

•AMITABH SINHA: Will Congress’s overtures to Nitish Kumar continue or end?

In politics, one has to take into account all options. Nitish Kumar has his own ideological problems with BJP. He is having problems within his own party too. But Nitishji has delivered better than the previous regime. If it hadn’t been for the fodder case, Laluji too would have been a fairly good administrator. But the person who did not deliver in Bihar delivered at the Railways.

•UNNI RAJEN SHANKER: Do you think anti-incumbency as a factor is over in Indian politics?

There was a period till 2004 when state governments were starved of funds. The Centre did not give them the money that was due to them because of recommendations of the Finance Commission. In the last five years, because of better tax collections and better GDP, more than 4-5 times central assistance has been given to state governments. So anti-incumbency was more pre-2004 than post-2004 because post-2004, CMs had much more funds to deliver.

•RAVISH TIWARI: How do you view the BSP’s future? Will it be confined to UP?

Mayawatiji is really not being able to deliver what she had promised. She is now saying that people remember the Roman Empire because of their massive buildings. So people will remember Mayawati because of the massive buildings that she is constructing. She is not delivering to the people who put her there—the Dalits. Whenever Rahul Gandhi has gone to a Dalit house, she has been the first one to react. We always ask the BSP, what have you given to the Dalits? And the answer is nothing. I met a very senior leader who left BSP and started working with us. He said that from Sarvajan Hitaye, Sarvajan Sukhaye (universal good and happiness for all), the BSP’s rule has become Sarvajan Dukhaye aur Dalal Sukhaye (universal misery and happiness for contractors). The media attributed her victory to very clever social engineering but there was no social engineering. She won because she was the only one to speak up against Mulayam Singh Yadav’s misrule.

•VANDITA MISHRA: What is the long-term organisational plan for the Congress in UP?

There are two to three issues that we are debating these days—in fact, the very structure of the Congress is being debated. The lowest unit is a polling booth, which is a political boundary. The next one is the block Congress committee, which is an administrative boundary, and then there is the district Congress committee which again is the administrative boundary. In a block area, there are some polling booths in one assembly seat and some polling booths in other assembly seats so there is no proper coordination. A debate has been going on within the party whether the political structure should be based on political boundaries rather than administrative ones. Meanwhile, Rahul Gandhi is working hard on democratising the party organisation by holding Youth Congress elections and he says he will complete the process by 2010.

•AMITABH SINHA: In Maharashtra, has the party decided to go with the NCP in the coming Assembly elections?

There are two schools of thought. One section wants to go it alone, the second section wants to go with the NCP. Again, it is a question of transfer of votes. In local body elections, we don’t have alliances. But here, the acrimony builds up to such an extent that it is very difficult to patch up and transfer votes. Congress and NCP have to take a call as to what should be done.

•VAIBHAV VATS: Will the Congress consider Mayawati’s idea of trifurcation of UP?

Population wise, UP is the seventh largest country in the world today. There is a strong argument in favour of division. Congress does not oppose it. But a decision has to be taken on that.

•J.P. YADAV: Does Congress want a bipolar polity where there would be only the Congress and the BJP?

We want to have bipolar politics in the country but it will always be a multi-party democracy. BJP can never go past 160-170 seats in this country. BJP has an ideological contradiction. What degree of Hindutva on a scale of 1-10 has to be adopted is something the BJP has not been able to decide in the last 30 years.

•MANEESH CHHIBBER: Tell us about your relationship with Amar Singh.

Mr Amar Singh is a very colourful figure and I met him in the late 80s when he was a very close associate of Mr Madhav Rao Scindia. He had political ambitions in the Congress which were not fulfilled and he blames me for that. He later went to the SP, where he has performed exceedingly well. In 1993, during the MP elections, he opposed me bitterly. He has also said that I have been gracious enough to maintain good relations with him despite that. And then of course, the rest is history. He rose in politics and Bollywood and his rise has been phenomenal.

•DHIRAJ NAYYAR: In terms of economic policy, is there a clear shift to the left in the Congress party now?

The Congress has always been pro-poor and that continues. Reform with a human face has been a Congress strategy, inclusive politics have always been the party’s forte. The majority of Congressmen feel that we cannot do without investments in the social sector, more poverty alleviation programmes. An environment has to be created where industry, manufacturing and other sectors grow without hindrance from the government. Free economy, yes, market economy, yes, not with blindfolds on, but by keeping our eyes wide open.

•SUMAN K. JHA: During the Gujarat elections, the phrase ‘Hindu terror’ was used and seems to have helped the BJP.

As far as Hindu terror is concerned, what happened in Malegaon is well-known. When I was MP chief minister in 2002, a bomb was thrown at a temple in Mau. The MP police arrested five people from the VHP and they confessed that they had thrown the bomb. Terrorism knows no caste, whether it is a Hindu or a Muslim. The hub of the Gujarat communal riots was the central part of the state, where we had won only seven assembly seats in 2002, but in 2007, I was put in charge of those 62 seats and we improved from 7 to 22.

•SEEMA CHISHTI: Parties which enjoyed premium space in the last 20 years are now on the back foot. But they have done something for the Dalit/OBC awakening. What will Congress do to retain the tremendous mandate it has received?

There’s no doubt that Mandalisation unlocked the political strength of OBC leaders. At the same time, their performance has not been outstanding. That period is now over. The Congress’s mistake of not building up enough Dalit/OBC leadership has now been realised and efforts are being made to build leadership in all sections of the Congress.

Transcribed by Maroosha Muzaffar and Vaibhav Vats