CONGRESS ruled the country independently till 1977 when it lost power for three years to Janata Party. Then it regained it in 1980. It remained so up to 1989 when it was reduced to minority. Then VP Singh ruled with the help of the BJP and left parties. But Congress regained power in 1992 and was defeated in 1996. Again it came to power as a coalition partner in 2004 and is continuing in this position till today. Since it has the major chunk of seats, it became the major partner with the leadership in its own hand.
Any institution which consolidates power comes through struggle. You can acquire votes but it is not easy to continue with the same people voting and also to get more votes to win especially when your allies are in competing mood and you are working as a coalition. The topic of the book is important since it is the Congress Party which has attained the prime position amongst the various political parties. Much work exists in the form of books and research papers on each aspect of the party. Shri SR Mehrotra has written many volumes on the subject under study. Dr Ravindra Kumar and Pattabhi also don’t lag behind. Shri Stanley Kochank and Shri Norman D Palmer have done tremendous work on the relationship of Congress organisation and its parliamentary wing.
“The Parliamentary Board acted as a sub committee of the Working Committee. The Working Committee acted as a sub committee of the Parliamentary Board”…. Chief Ministers always remained members of Working Committee”. This is how the writer discusses the membership of the Working Committee and Parliamentary Board of the Congress. The front organisations have also not been remained untouched.
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