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Emboldened by the performance of the Congress in the recent assembly elections and the drubbing the Bharatiya Janata Party received in the Delhi municipal election, party president Sonia Gandhi is chalking out a two-pronged strategy to rejuvenate the organisation and consolidate the support of the minorities.
Against this backdrop, the two-day meeting of Congress chief ministers, beginning in Guwahati on Friday, is likely to vow not to implement the controversial Prevention of Terrorism Act in the 14 Congress-ruled states of the Union.
According to Congress insiders, Gandhi, who had strongly opposed the POT Bill in Parliament, is expected to tell her chief ministers that the party's position would become untenable if it used POTA in states under its rule. Also, any use of POTA at a time when the Congress is slowly regaining the support of the Muslims could prove detrimental to the efforts to woo them back.
The insiders say Gandhi is keen to avoid a repetition of the fiasco in Maharashtra, where the police applied the provisions of the POT Ordinance to a suspected Al Qaeda operative. Though the police later had to drop the charges under POTO for lack of evidence, the attempt by a Congress-led government to use a law that the party was opposing in Parliament embarrassed Gandhi no end.
Ajit Jogi, Digvijay Singh, Ashok Gehlot and A K Antony, chief ministers of Chhattisgarh, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and Kerala, respectively, have already made it clear that they will not implement POTA in their states as they believe the police have enough powers to fight terrorists.
Ironically, Chhattisgarh, a tribal-dominated state, is prone to Naxalite activity. Assam, which will host the chief ministers' meeting, is another terrorist-infested state. Meghalaya, Mizoram and Arunachal Pradesh, all Congress-ruled states, are also facing militancy-related problems.
The only states that may not have much of a problem in abiding by the party's dictate on POTA are Karnataka, Kerala, Pondicherry and Punjab. Even Rajasthan, a relatively peaceful state, faces the problem of unwanted people crossing over from neighbouring Pakistan.
The National Capital Territory of Delhi will not be in a position to do much in this regard because law and order within its borders is under the control of the Union government.
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