National

A Queen Of Hearts No More

Assembly election results may be the beginning of the end for Sonia Gandhi in her dynasty’s fief

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A Queen Of Hearts No More
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IF the Congress could be personified, it would have made a fit case for the shrink’s couch. That its one time near-ecstatic adora-tion for party president Sonia Gandhi was but a face of the repressed resentment against her is only com-ing to light now. Observes a CWC member: "Sonia Gandhi will have to change (her style of functioning) or the Congress will have to change her." This statement summed up the mood of the party after its poor per-formance in the assembly elections.

The bad news poured in from all cor-ners of the country—not just from Orissa, Haryana and Bihar—as the Congress lost byelections in most states. Congressmen were reduced to drawing cheer from the poor showing by the BJP and a good performance by the RJD, notwithstanding Laloo Yadav’s attacks on Sonia during the campaign.

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Sonia loyalists immediately closed ranks. R e g a rdless of the thumping majorities for the NDA in Orissa and Haryana, AICC general  secretary Ghulam Nabi Azad declared: "This is a very good result. Only a madman would have thought it could be different." The Congress president was secure and only the BJP agents thought otherwise, he said.

Congress spokesperson Ajit Jogi went so far as to claim that the party had shown a spectacular improvement in Orissa and Haryana as compared to the Lok Sabha elections and took the credit for having contained the BJP in Bihar and Haryana. "People a re beginning to reject the BJP," he declared . AICC secretary Jairam Ramesh said, "This isn’t a referendum on Sonia Gandhi. Assembly elections are fought on local issues.

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Ups and downs are part of the electoral process." However, like other Congress-men, he too admitted that it’s time for "introspection". "We have to restructure the party and discard all those leaders who don’t have a mass base," said Manoranjan Bhakta, former Lok Sabha chief whip.

The party had expected a better showing in Haryana as a consequence of infighting within the NDA. And in Orissa, AICC obse-rvers had predicted it would get twice the  number of seats it eventually got, while in Bihar, it had been expected to improve its tally by at least 50 per cent.

Even before the assembly election results  began coming in, the 10 Janpath loyalists had put defensive strategies in place. They solicited statements of support from prominent party leaders. And Madhya Pradesh and Karnataka chief ministers Digvijay Singh and S.M. Krishna obliged.

Next, the RSS bogey was raised both inside and outside Parliament to divert attention from the party’s internal troubles. This was followed by the Congress president speak-ing individually to some of the dissident leaders. Simultaneously, organisational elections were announced to deflect the dissidents’ focus on Sonia.

Senior leaders believe that Sonia’s troubles will begin immediately after the nominations to the Rajya Sabha. Explains an AICC functionary: "First, a lot of senior people will be upset if they are denied seats and she can’t accommodate everybody. Second, she will have no more carrots to doleout".

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Various possible formulae have been discussed privately among dissident leaders, one being to pressurise Sonia into appointing an executive president, perhaps Digvijay Singh, assuming the regional satrap is ready to shift to Delhi. For Sonia, the worst-case scenario would be if she was asked, as her predecessors were, to nominate her successor.

Not all Congress leaders are sanguine about the gains made by the RJD, the BJD and the INLD in Bihar, Orissa and Haryana. "It is not the BJP we have to fear but its allies and other regional parties. They are squeezing us out. This is worrying, but no one in the party seems to have taken cognisance of that," said a CWC member.

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Disgruntlement in the Congress stems not only from poor performance in elections, but the obvious inability of the party to function as a credible opposition, even in Parliament. Party MPs point out that despite considerable training, Sonia, as leader of the Opposition, still reads her speeches only from prepared texts.

Nor has there been an attempt to take on the BJP on any issue other than the RSS. Avers Rajya Sabha mem-ber Vyalar Ravi: "By fighting Hindu communalism alone, we will not get anywhere." He has also been demand-ing a review of the party’s economic policy. In fact, PCC chiefs and CLP leaders, who were summoned to Delhi last week to dis-cuss the party’s proposed rally on March 6, said theyfeared the campaign against the RSS might prove counter-productive.

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No lessons have been learnt from the Lok Sabha debacle, partymen say, with non- performing favourites still being promoted on the basis of their proximity to 10 Janpath. One example is the virtual gifting of the Colaba assembly seat to the Shiv Sena. The ticket was given to a nominee of former MP Murli Deora—a 10 Janpath favourite—with the result that the winning candidate crossed over to the Shiv Sena. Says R.P. Gavai of the Republican Party of India, Congress’ ally in Maharashtra: "The Congress is a monopoly of Sonia Gandhi. Until this monopoly is broken and checks and balances are introduced, nothing can be done."

Besides, the Congress has failed to make common cause with other Opposition parties. Last week, rejecting the suggestion that she write letters to leaders of secular parties, Sonia deputed senior party leaders to speak to them but did not get a positive response. Declares Samajwadi Party leader Amar Singh: "As long as Sonia is  the Congress president, there is no question of any coordination with it." Singh, a long-time Sonia-baiter, last week moved a private member’s bill on debarring persons of foreign origin from holding key posts in the Rajya Sabha. SP chief Mulayam Singh Yadav pointed "They are always attacking us  rather than the BJP. In Kannauj, the Congress not only fielded a candidate but even sup- ported the SP’s nearest rival, the BSP. " The Lok Sabha byelection was eventually won by Mulayam’s son Akhilesh.

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The pro-Sonia and even the neutral faction in the Congress argue that there’s no alternative to her. They fear the Congress would disintegrate if she were to be ousted as party president, without a strong, universally acceptable leader already in place. "It will have to be a bloodless coup," observed a senior Lok Sabha MP.

Much depends on how Sonia handles herself in the months to come. "If a fear psychosis sets in and she sur-rounds herself with old faithfuls again, nominating Arjun Singh, Ram Pradhan and Natwar Singh to the Rajya Sabha, the explosion may come sooner rather than later," speculated an AICC functionary.

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The faction opposed to her agrees that it’ll be difficult to ease her out despite the party’s apathetic election performance. One of them summed it up: "We have to keep in mind that she has a brahmastra at her disposal—Priyanka Gandhi."

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