Goddess Of Many Hands

In mist- and mizzle-shrouded Shimla, where Congressmen gathered to chart their way forward, the one fact that emerged with absolute clarity was Sonia Gandhi's firm resolve to take oath as prime minister in 2004. To that end, the Congress adopted the twin mantras of "coalition" and "reservation".

In a paradigm shift from Pachmarhi, where the Congress drew the roadmap it has followed for the past five years, the party opened its doors to electoral tie-ups and cast a net out for the have-nots through promises of job quotas and anti-poverty measures. A three-point programme emerged: strategic alliances, social engineering and pro-poor policies.

The Congress is willing to do whatever it takes to achieve the short-term goal of winning the 2004 Lok Sabha poll, except compromise on the issue of leadership. Any doubt on that score was laid to rest by the Shimla Sankalp (resolution), which anticipated "the victory of the Congress under the leadership of Smt Sonia Gandhi". Sonia herself made it amply clear that she was the undisputed boss, responsible for her decisions and willing to be held accountable for them.

In her opening address, she spoke of her evolution as a leader in the past five years. "There is never any shortage of advice on any subject. I listen...I consult...I seek a consensus. Ultimately, the decision is mine." In her closing speech, she underlined the message: "The (Shimla) sankalp will be implemented fully, in letter and spirit. And I would welcome being held accountable for it."

Before the press, party spokesperson S. Jaipal Reddy was categorical: "We will be fighting elections under her leadership. The (leadership) question is closed. She is our president and she leads the party in Parliament." But whatever their public posture, Congress leaders are not necessarily convinced that projecting Sonia as PM is desirable. Behind closed doors, they debated at length the wisdom of including the phrase "under the leadership of Smt Sonia Gandhi" in the sankalp.

The majority felt it was necessary to send out a clear signal to potential alliance partners that her leadership was non-negotiable. In fact, during the discussions on coalition and alliances, the suggestion that a resolution to this effect be passed found many takers. It wasn't implemented, but the leadership issue was clearly the main underlying factor in the heated debate on alliances. As Congress Working Committee member and former Maharashtra CM Vilasrao Deshmukh said, "The NCP has to take a clear stand on who will lead the alliance, because Parliament and assembly elections are to be held together. We can't say we will go together in the assembly and not in the Lok Sabha poll."

Significantly, although Sonia spelt out the party's openness to alliances in her speech, the subject was dropped from the Shimla Sankalp at the last minute (at 1.30 am on July 8 to be precise). Ostensibly because of the belated realisation that alliances form part of the party's electoral strategy and ought not figure in a statement of principles and ideals. "At Shimla we adopted a 'resolve', as opposed to the Pachmarhi declaration. The sankalp must be read in conjunction with the Congress president's speech," explained Jaipal Reddy.

In actual fact, the anti-alliances lobby (Pranab Mukherjee, M.L. Fotedar, Salman Khursheed, Naval Kishore Sharma, Devendra Dwivedi) managed to keep it out of the sankalp. They also ensured that Sonia's speech was worded so as to make it clear that the onus of forging alliances lay as much with other secular parties as with the Congress; they would have to meet the Congress at least half way. "We've said we're open to alliances. Now what more can we say? We can't take out an advertisement in the papers inviting people to join us," observed Khursheed.

A wide range of opinion on alliances was aired, the general consensus being that since the Congress could not come to power on its own and could at best hope to emerge as the single-largest party, it would have to lay the policy groundwork for a coalition. A section of UP leaders strongly urged announcing a pre-poll tie-up with the Samajwadi Party to take on the BSP-BJP alliance, but others felt alliances should be crafted at the appropriate time, that is, just before the polls. It also became amply clear that Congress leaders rather than the grassroots workers were keen on alliances. And that the short-term compulsion of the 2004 Lok Sabha poll was seen as the only justification for getting into bed with other parties.

A BJP-style coalition is clearly out of the question, as alliances will be limited to the state level. The Congress units in Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan wanted no truck with the SP. "Don't create Frankenstein's monsters for us," leaders from both states said. Similarly, the Chhattisgarh unit wants nothing to do with the NCP. Not much time was spent on Tamil Nadu, but the speakers were confident of the party's prospects even on its own.

Apart from alliances, where self-interest appeared to dictate the stand of the various leaders, there was a surprising degree of honest introspection during the conclave. Delegates openly admitted the party had alienated itself from the have-nots, which formed its traditional votebank. That in turn led to a great deal of emphasis on social engineering and pro-poor economic policies.

The Shimla Sankalp reflected the general view that the party should push for incentive-based affirmative action in the private sector. "We offer the private sector incentives to set up industries in backward areas. Why not offer them incentives to keep jobs for backward castes?" said cwc member Kamal Nath. Pushing for private sector reservation is seen as a surefire way of winning votes at a time when liberalisation is on an overdrive and the public sector is rapidly shedding jobs.

And that's not all. Among the suggestions which found favour was reservation for Dalits and OBCs in the judiciary. Also, quotas for upper castes based on economic criteria, inclusion of minorities among the OBCs and raising of caste-based regiments in the armed forces. In the general pro-affirmative action atmosphere, the party brushed aside both the 50 per cent quota limits set by the Supreme Court and the "creamy layer" concept, which excludes the rich from the benefits of reservation.

Interestingly, there was no agenda paper or discussion group on economic policy. All matters pertaining to the economy came up under the head of "rural transformation". "We don't want to refine too much on economic policy, because we're distancing ourselves from reforms without saying so explicitly," said a party leader. He pointed out that while the Congress sees employment growth as the "overriding objective of our economic policies", it had become increasingly clear that Manmohanomics led to deceleration of job growth.

Unlike the Pachmarhi Declaration, which pointedly "appreciated the remarkable recovery and impressive achievements secured through reforms of the period 1991-96", the Shimla Sankalp merely said the party appreciated the "successful stewardship of Congress governments". As Congress MP Shymacharan Shukla said, "We have to be seen to distance ourselves from the economic policies of this government." And that's exactly what the Shimla Sankalp does.

Party MP Mani Shankar Aiyer observed, "In this phase of economic reforms, we are entering the lives of ordinary people. What's in it for them? To ensure mass rural support to economic policy, you have to make the process of reforms relevant to them." In a turnaround from the past 12 years, presumably fuelled by the realisation that its votebank lay in rural India, the sankalp places a strong emphasis on public investment in the agricultural sector and on land reforms. Policy statements that are likely to appeal to Congress supporters in the Left Front.

Addressing yet another votebank—that of the minorities—the Shimla Sankalp dwelt on the "evil and cynical" designs of the Sangh parivar. The party's position paper on electoral strategies described minorities as an "extreme focus area" and claimed that by 1999, it had already regained 50 per cent of its minority votebank.

Some delegates, like Rajasthan CM Ashok Gehlot, said the party was unnecessarily self-conscious about its secular identity. They characterised the BJP's cultural nationalism as "pseudo-nationalism" and called for a celebration of "Hindu dharma" as opposed to the BJP brand of Hindutva. Delegates even acknowledged they'd lost the battle for the minds by failing to counter the parivar's subtle infiltration into education. In keeping with the mood, Sonia not only reiterated the party's "court verdict" stand on Ayodhya, but went one step further to say that both Kashi and Mathura were strictly off-limits.

Shimla provided the party with a new vocabulary and buzzwords like rural transformation, social empowerment and people-oriented governance. These will form the basis not only of its own manifesto, but of a common minimum programme for a Congress-centric coalition at the Centre, come Lok Sabha 2004. All that, of course, if it comes their way.