Now Congressmen have also started celebrating Chaudhary Charan Singh’s birthday.

 (Amjad Usmani)

Former Prime Minister Chaudhary Charan Singh was born on 23 December 1902. Born in a farmer family, Chaudhary Saheb worked all his life for the betterment of farmers. That’s why farmers consider him as their messiah and celebrate his birthday as Farmer’s Day. Chaudhary Charan Singh, who was involved in the freedom struggle, considered Mahatma Gandhi and Pandit Nehru as his ideals. He started his political journey from Congress itself, but after the death of Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru, he became disillusioned with the Congress after seeing its internal politics and chose his own path for politics. Taking forward the theory of non-Congressism, together with Dr. Lohia, in 1967, for the first time, he showed the Congress the way out of power in UP, Bihar and Madhya Pradesh. Till that time, Congress was considered a criminal and the Congress of that time also had the same arrogance as today’s BJP. After that, Chaudhary Saheb remained distant from Congress throughout his life. He was also put in jail during the Emergency. In view of their differences in the Janata Party government, Congress, through people like Satyapal Malik, at one time supported him for the post of Prime Minister, but Choudhary Charan Singh did not forgive the betrayal by withdrawing its support before the trust vote for the rest of his life.                                   

Today, Congressmen are seen celebrating the birthday of Chaudhary Charan Singh at many places. This is seen only during the election season. Even in Mangalore, Uttarakhand, there is a ritual of celebrating Chaudhary Charan Singh’s birthday with great pomp once in five years. Congress leader and former MLA Qazi Nizamuddin celebrates the birthday of Chaudhary Charan Singh with great pomp once in five years before the assembly elections and the reason for this is not due to reverence for Chaudhary Saheb but the presence of thousands of voters present in his name in the assembly constituency. Whom he wants to rename in the name of Chaudhary Saheb. Even today a similar program is being organized in Mangalore. In which many big leaders of Congress are said to be coming. Names of people like Harish Rawat, Yashpal Arya and Karan Mahara have been publicized as those who will be included. Now if someone asks these three leaders, when did you awaken your faith in Chaudhary Charan Singh and where have you given place to his ideals in your politics? So they will have no answer.

As far as Qazi Nizamuddin is concerned, he is not politically mature. He thinks that by celebrating the birthday of Chaudhary Charan Singh once in five years, he will get the votes of his followers, then this is just like dreaming because when the farmers were agitating for the payment of sugarcane price and other problems, they would not have got a leader. Or Qazi Nizamuddin does not get support as a regional MLA. In such a situation, farmers understand very well the meaning of political drama. Mangalore Assembly by-election is going to be held in the coming few months. Even before five years, Qazi Nizamuddin is once again celebrating the birthday of Chaudhary Charan Singh. Qazi Nizamuddin has the right to celebrate anyone’s birthday anytime, but the question also arises whether he celebrates the birthdays of other leaders in the same way. Last month was the birthday of Congress stalwart Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru and the birthday of Mrs. Indira Gandhi. There was no fanfare on them. No event was organized even on the death anniversary of his father Qazi Mohiuddin, who was a popular leader.

What I mean to say is that this is pure opportunistic politics and in today’s era when the public is more politically aware then this kind of gimmickry is not going to be of any special benefit.