The Wily Autocrat

AUTOCRATIC tendencies within the Congress are not new, but never has the decision-making process in the party been as centralised as it is in the run-up to the Lok Sabha polls. Since the early 1970s, successive party presidents—Indira Gandhi, Rajiv Gandhi and P.V. Narasimha Rao—have acquired absolute powers, not through democratic exercises within the party as was the earlier practice, but at the cost of the party institution. So much so that Rao's half-hearted exercise to project a semblance of democracy by allowing mandatory elections to the Congress Working Committee (CWC) in April 1992 was abandoned immediately afterwards as he could see in the elected members—especially Arjun Singh and Sharad Pawar—a legitimate threat to his leadership.

It is this strategy that has probably helped Rao emerge as the most powerful Congress leader with absolute powers vested in him. As he never constituted the seven-member Central Parliamentary Board (CPB) as per the party constitution—even Indira Gandhi complied with this provision during the Emergency—he remains the sole arbiter in selection of candidates for all 543 Lok Sabha seats.

Yet, over the last few weeks, Rao has been trying to create the impression that democratic yardsticks would be applied in selection of candidates. He appointed his trusted aide and former additional solicitor general, Devendra Dwivedi, as AICC general secretary and announced a list of pradesh election committees (PECs) to scrutinise district committee lists in their respective states. And in a bid to outwit his rivals, he named 40 members of the screening committees.

For instance, Pawar has been made a member of the screening committee for Orissa along with Ahmad Patel. With Chief Minister J.B. Patnaik being a staunch Rao loyalist, the two dissidents are likely to have little say in finalising 16 candidates. Similarly, he has put G.K. Moopanar, who has resisted Rao's moves to wrap up a Congress-AIADMK alliance in Tamil Nadu, in charge of Delhi to keep him away from anti-AIADMK Congressmen in his home state. Rao has also made it a point to place loyalists like Janardhan Poojary, Sitaram Kesri, Sudhakarrao Naik and Dwivedi in charge of major states like Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh and Uttar Pradesh.

"Rao's next move will be to get the PECs to pass resolutions that in the event of a dispute, they would leave the matter to the Congress president," says a party general secretary.

In Maharashtra, out of 48 seats, both Pawar and Home Minister S.B. Chavan are locked in a bitter feud over 18 seats, having concurred on 30 renominations. Chavan and party veterans from the state like A.R. Antulay and V.N. Gadgil want Rao to allot a ticket to Balasaheb Vikhe Patil—who had briefly quit the Congress and dragged Pawar to court for corrupt electoral practices in 1989.

And while Dwivedi's appointment as an AICC general secretary has once again triggered off an intra-party feud in Uttar Pradesh—it has marginalised PCC chief Jitendra Prasada—Rajasthan PCC chief Ashok Gehlot is unhappy with the central directive that he should quit the post if he wants to recontest. In Bihar, the party is divided into three major camps—one led by Jagannath Mishra and PCC chief Sarfraz Ahmed, another by Kesri and Tariq Anwar and the third by Ram Lakhan Singh Yadav. Needless to say, Rao will be the beneficiary.

Meanwhile, there are indications that Rao will soon activate the central election committee (CEC), with most members drawn from the CWC. With the CEC heavily tilted in favour of Rao, who will already be equipped with the PECs' authorisation to decide candidates, he has ensured that he will not have to turn to the CWC in the process. And the CEC, by its very nature, would have to concentrate mainly on selection of candidates rather than discussing political issues. Already, Rao has nominated CWC members, including those named in the hawala case like Balram Jakhar and R.K. Dhawan, to their respective PECs to give them a sense of involvement in the selection process.

And so, while Rao has been able to reinforce his supremacy over the party, his attempts to convince the electorate of having set the national agenda seems to have boomeranged. The latest demand by the Confederation of Indian Industries to restrict foreign investment to the infrastructural sector—a line closer to the BJP's heart—has dealt a small blow to the party's much projected 'new economic policy' plank. But then, the Prime Minister can always fall back on his stability trump card.