Preparations on for three-day Cong plenary session

By A.Jayaram

BANGALORE, JAN 13. The hard realities are dawning on the KPCC(I) leaders as they set out to make arrangements for the Congress plenary to be held in Bangalore from February 14 to 16.

For the record, it will only be the third plenary to be held in Karnataka. The State has the unique honour of having hosted the only Congress session to have been presided over by Mahatma Gandhi, and that was in Belgaum. Two of the titans of the Congress contributed by the State, Gangadhara Rao Deshpande and Dr. Narayan Subbarao Hardikar, were in the vanguard of the reception committee. The latter launched the Hindustan Seva Dal.

The second Congress plenary to be held in the State was the 65th session of the party held in January 1960 and presided over by Neelam Sanjiva Reddy, who later became President of India. It was held at today's Sadashivanagar, which was formed on the just then destroyed Palace Orchards. There were no environmentalists those days to protest against the large-scale massacre of trees and greenery. The B.D.Jatti government was in office those days. The MPCC President then was the pioneer Congressman and Kannada journalist, H.K.Veeranna Gowda. A scout jambooree had been held on the former Palace Orchard ground before the Congress session.

The venue of the 1960 Congress was named after Karnad Sadashiva Rao (1881-1936) well-known Congressman and freedom fighter of Dakshina Kannada. He had dedicated himself to the cause of freedom and died of fever contracted at the Faizpur Congress of 1936.

The venue of the 1924 Belgaum Congress had been named Vijayanagar after the Vijayanagar empire. Historically, it has been more significant than the 1960 Congress. It was the Belgaum Congress which ratified the pact between Gandhiji and the Swarajists, C.R.Das and Motilal Nehru, on the question of Council entry. Annie Besant, who had opposed the pact, arrived late and after the ratification. It was also at Belgaum that Gandhiji stipulated spinning of Khadi and constructive work for Congress members. He was yet to come out in support of complete Independence. In his address, he preferred a federation of friendly independent States to complete Independence as the political goal of the Congress.

However, Bangalore City had hosted three AICC sessions, the most famous of which was the July 1969 session which led to the famous Congress Split which occurred the next month. S.Nijalingappa was the AICC President then and Indira Gandhi Prime Minister.

An AICC session was held in the City in 1952 when K.Hanumanthaiya was the Chief Minister of Mysore (the reorganisation of the State was four years away). Jawaharlal Nehru was both Prime Minister and Congress President. He had taken over the reins of the party after the forced exit of Babu Purushotthamdas Tandon who had become AICC President at the Nasik Congress of 1950 defeating Nehru's candidate, Acharya J.B.Kripalani. Tandon was later to be honoured with Bharat Rathna.

The other AICC session was in 1965 when Lal Bahadur Shastri was Prime Minister and K.Kamaraj AICC President. S.Nijalingappa was the Chief Minister.

All the three AICC sessions were held at the same venue, Glass House in Lalbagh.

As regards the present realities, the Congress of today is not the one it was in 1960. The party has weakened at the all-India level, and a large number of former Congressmen are to be found in the other political parties, including the BJP and more so in the Janata Dals. Congressmen are no longer the "simple folk" they were even in 1960. Elderly partymen remember that at the Sadashivanagar Congress, the party delegates from various parts of the country had stayed in tents. But this time the KPCC has to provide accommodation to the expected 10,000 delegates in hotels. The leaders will be housed in luxury hotels except perhaps the party President, Ms. Sonia Gandhi, who might stay at the Raj Bhavan. It has been noticed that for many years now, the AICC leaders, who visit the City, prefer to stay in five-star hotels, and the rooms booked for them in the Kumarakrupa State Guest- House are not occupied.

The prominent political leaders of today who were active during the 1960 Congress session include Mr. Ramakrishna Hegde, who was then a minister in the then Mysore State, Mr. V.S.Krishna Iyer, who was the Secretary of the Exhibition Committee, Mr. Haranahalli Ramaswamy, Chairman of the State's Administrative Reforms Commission, who even then was an MLC, and Mr. M.Rajashekaramurthy, BJP MP, and the Speaker of the Legislative Assembly, Mr. M.V.Venkatappa, who was a member of one of the committees of the Sadashivanagar Congress.

Though most of the open spaces in the City have disappeared, it is fortunate that the vast Bangalore Palace Grounds are available for such meets as the Congress plenary session. It is one of the two venues under consideration by the party. The other is the Kanteerava Indoor Stadium.

The prohibitive cost of hosting such party jamboorees is also weighing on the minds of the State unit leaders though they do not envisage any problems as they are in power in the State. Another problem relates to the dearth of dedicated party workers.

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