Again, both the party's actions and the recent reshuffle in the council of ministers only go to underline the Congress's continued discomfort with its coalition partners. The party may have stressed in its political resolution in Hyderabad that it remained committed to the dharma of coalition politics. But its refusal to have an electoral arrangement with the RJD last February in Bihar laid the stage for the JD(U)-BJP victory in November; its shabby treatment of former prime minister H.D. Deve Gowda led to the fall of its government in Karnataka.
And now, government sources say, the major reason why three cabinet ministers were inducted from Maharashtra in the recent reshuffle—for petroleum, power and minority affairs—even though the state already had three cabinet ministers, for home, agriculture and civil aviation—was to help neutralise the influence of Union agriculture minister Sharad Pawar. "The combination of a Dalit (Shinde), a Muslim (A.R. Antulay, the new minority affairs minister) and a Mr Moneybags (Deora) should do the trick," say these sources. Indeed, it would appear that the Congress is more intent on checkmating its allies rather than the BJP, its stated political rival.
And even though Sonia and son, Rahul, exhorted party delegates in Hyderabad to strengthen weak party units—in Uttar Pradesh or Bihar—or states going to the polls, the ministerial changes will not contribute to that process. So, UP has been given an additional MoS, Akhilesh Das, whose skills other than in business are little known; the new entrant from Tamil Nadu, G.K. Vasan, son of the late G.K. Moopanar, has been given MoS status and an inconsequential portfolio; Kerala sees the entry of a party senior Vayalar Ravi, but he has been given the obscure portfolio of nri affairs; while in Assam, heavy industry minister Santosh Mohan Deb has been elevated to cabinet status. And the two toughest jobs in the party—taking care of UP and Bihar—have ironically been given to the two men with a proven track record in government, general secretaries Ashok Gehlot and Digvijay Singh.
The ministerial changes also point to changing power equations in the government. If thus far, Union defence minister Pranab Mukherjee, who heads virtually every group of ministers, was an uneasy number two with Union HRD minister Arjun Singh at his heels, now the former can rest easy. Arjun Singh has been cut down to size—first, the department of women and children has been hived off and handed over to an MoS with independent charge), and the creation of a new ministry of minority affairs will weaken him further.
And finally, the entry of Ambika Soni into the government means she not only loses her number three slot in the party—after Ahmed Patel—but it also opens up the possibility of changed power equations in the organisation(see Amar,Akbar, Anthony). Soni, asked whether her rivals had finally got her, says she herself wanted to move to the government, adding, "And if my rivals, as you say, got me, it took a long time—eight years."
The trouble with the Congress is that its strength is its weakness—The Family. If the family holds its disparate elements together, the byzantine intrigues in the Congress make most other parties look like babes in the political woods. As a Congressman said, "Most of us believe that people are born in India to vote for the Congress. God and The Family will do the rest." This, along with the divorce between governance and politics—no matter that Manmohan calls his relationship with Sonia Gandhi harmonious—can have only two effects: one, the government will continue to hit the headlines for all the wrong reasons and two, the lessons of elections 2004 and India Shining could get lost along the way.
