Mid-term challenges

The Assembly election defeats come as a warning against the neoliberal policies of the Congress and the UPA government.

VENKITESH RAMAKRISHNAN in New Delhi

"WE seem to have got into a phase of tentative self-criticism following the electoral reverses in Punjab and Uttarakhand. One does not know how long this would last, but there can be little doubt that homilies by themselves would not help us turn around. What we need is concrete political and administrative measures that help overcome the disconnect between the projected socio-economic objectives of the Congress party and the governance priorities of the governments that we lead at the Centre and in several States. And to achieve this, we need a forceful political leadership that is capable of listening to the voices from the grassroots, assimilate them democratically into the party's organisational system and provide sane, creative guidance to the leaders of the government." This was the sotto voce observation of a senior South Indian Congress leader about party president Sonia Gandhi's speech at the Congress Parliamentary Party (CPP) meeting held on March 6.

Sonia Gandhi dwelt on the recent electoral reverses suffered by the party in Punjab and Uttarakhand. Terming the results as disappointing, she said: "While objective factors such as the price rise may have had an impact, there were other reasons as well."

The Congress president went on to elucidate these "other reasons" and asked the Congress Members of Parliament to be candid with themselves and look inwards to examine the shortcomings that led to the electoral reverses. "Did we put up the best possible candidates and effort? Did our party fail to work unitedly? Were we mindful enough of the sensitivities and expectations of different sections of the people? These questions need to be answered, and the answers analysed." Sonia Gandhi also added that Congress leaders and activists needed to place the party's larger interests above their own individual ambitions.

In the days following this exhortation by Sonia Gandhi, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Finance Minister P. Chidambaram followed suit with comments of a similar nature, particularly with reference to the economic policies pursued by the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government at the Centre. Replying to the debate in the Lok Sabha on the motion of thanks to the President's address, Manmohan Singh came up with a number of bon mots.

Stressing the need for "inclusive growth" to "make a significant dent on poverty and unemployment" the Prime Minister said: "In the process of growth, if inflation becomes a problem, bringing agony and hardships for the poorer sections of our society, that has to be dealt with on a priority basis." He admitted that "the pace of progress in agriculture in recent years has not been adequate" and added that "we should do a lot more to accelerate the process of growth of our agriculture".

Addressing a meeting of leaders of commerce and industry, Chidambaram referred repeatedly to the "Other India" that lives in the villages without the amenities enjoyed by the rich and the middle classes.

Obviously, the idea of setting its own house in order is getting expressed emotively within the Congress hierarchy. More importantly, the "aam aadmi" (common man) and his concerns are making a comeback into the discourses of the Congress and the government leadership. It was this category of people and the issues relating to them that had helped the Congress inflict a surprise defeat on the Bharatiya Janata Party-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA) in the 2004 Lok Sabha elections.

However, over the past few months, these concerns have been overshadowed by tall claims of a 9 per cent growth rate of the economy. But the big question, as the senior Congress leader commented privately, is whether the government and the party would be able to live up to the reiterated commitments as the government faces a serious mid-term political challenge.

According to the Congress leader, virtuous verbalising has been part of the Congress oratory periodically and even during the run-up to the recent Assembly polls. "In fact," the Congress leader said, "Sonia Gandhi herself had made such noises, time and again, through initiatives such as the letter she sent asking the government to go slow on special economic zones (SEZs) and foreign direct investment (FDI) in retail trade. But they did not carry enough political authority to produce tangible results."

The Congress leader's perception is also shared by Congress activists at different levels in the party. A stream of opinion within the Congress and among non-Congress parties in the UPA is that the leadership of the government and Sonia Gandhi had evolved a creative working model in the early period of the UPA, but this has steadily eroded in the past one and a half years.

Veteran political analyst Hariraj Singh Tyagi echoed this opinion and pointed out that many of Sonia Gandhi's recent "pro-people" initiatives were motivated by the pressure mounted by the Left parties and marked by mere symbolism. He said: "If the Congress president actually wanted to restrain the government in schemes such as SEZs and FDI, why did she have to take recourse to an emblematic act like writing a letter? She could have just summoned the Prime Minister and delivered the message.

"In the absence of such resolute political moves, the leaders of the government, who had got so completely carried away by the pursuit of the 9 per cent growth idea, overlooked the mounting inflation, the continual collapse of the agricultural economy and the concerns of the people, such as price rise. In the overall climate of oversight, they failed to perceive the growing resentment of the people too. In a sense, Tyagi added, Sonia Gandhi's act of sacrificing power in 2004 has steadily turned into a liability for the Congress and the country.

The Left parties, which support the Manmohan Singh government from outside, had, over the past one and half years, pointed systematically towards the oversights of the government on people's issues. The Left had used forums such as the UPA's coordination committee to highlight and advance its point of view.

One of the refrains of the Left parties was that the Manmohan Singh government's proclivity to subjugate all developmental concerns to the pursuit of a 9 per cent growth rate virtually placed it on a par with the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA) government, which ruled between 1998 and 2004. The Left had, time and again, pointed out that it was such policies that caused the electoral downfall of the NDA government.

Ironically, however, the people's reaction to the policies pursued by both the Congress and the NDA did not benefit the Left parties, which have consistently opposed these policies. In fact, in both Punjab and Uttarakhand the representation of the Left in terms of vote percentage came down from the 2002 elections. Communist Party of India (Marxist) general secretary Prakash Karat is of the view that this happened because the Left was not able to project itself as a viable alternative to the Congress and the NDA (see interview).

Whatever the reasoning, the fact remains that the Punjab and Uttarakhand elections have boosted the morale of the BJP, the Hindutva-oriented principal Opposition party. It was riven by ideological struggles and personality clashes during the early phase of the UPA government, but seems to be getting more organised and cohesive in the wake of the recent results. The party's relationship with other NDA allies has also, apparently, improved in the wake of the results.

The lone Congress victory in the current round of Assembly elections came from the northeastern State of Manipur, where economy-related issues did not hold sway. The major issues there were the integration of Naga-inhabited areas of the State with Nagaland and the Armed Forces (Special Powers) Act, 1958.

On both counts, the political leadership of the Congress and the leaders of the UPA government were perceived to have intervened creatively. It was this popular perception that helped the Congress retain the State (see separate story).

While the failure to enforce the political leadership's authority on the government and governance is perceived as one of the fundamental reasons for the electoral reverses in Punjab and Uttarakhand, the Congress leadership's inability to manage organisational problems, including group and personality clashes, in the State units is also seen as a major cause for the failure. The most striking example of this was manifested in Uttarakhand where the incumbent Chief Minister, N.D. Tiwari, virtually refused to campaign for party candidates (see separate story).

At the organisational level, the Congress has problems with its partners in the UPA too. These problems spring, essentially, from the Congress' big brotherly attitude. Just prior to the reverses in Punjab and Uttarakhand, the UPA suffered a stunning defeat in the local body elections in Mumbai, essentially on account of the inability of the Congress and the Sharad Pawar-led Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) to come to an understanding. This benefited the Shiv Sena-BJP alliance, which made spectacular electoral gains. In Punjab and Uttarakhand, too, parties such as the Communist Party of India (CPI) offered to ally with the Congress but the bigger party refused the proposal.

By any yardstick, it is clear that large sections of the Congress leadership have not yet come to terms with the concept of coalition politics and the fact that this type of politics has come to stay in India. Interestingly, even as electioneering was on in the recent polls, leaders of the Congress, including party general secretary Digvijay Singh, were highlighting the merits of one-party rule.

This attitude is in direct contrast to the line of approach of the BJP, the bigger party in NDA. The party has shown tremendous adaptability to coalition politics and is ready to accept the leadership of a coalition partner as and when required. This was exemplified recently in Punjab and last year in Bihar. Imbibing this adaptability to coalition politics would be one of the major lessons for the Congress leadership if it wants to make the current course-correction exercise successful.

Clearly, the success or failure of this course-correction exercise would have a significant impact in the Congress' future electoral battles, starting with the Uttar Pradesh Assembly polls in April-May. Even as Sonia Gandhi and Manmohan Singh express their keenness to go forward with the exercise, sections of the Congress persist with their scepticism.

According to the senior Congress leader, his scepticism emanates from the Congress' track record. "I was a witness to former Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi's famous harangue against `powerbrokers in the party' at the All India Congress Committee meet in Bombay [now Mumbai] in 1985 and I saw how the dynamic leader ultimately became trapped among the very powerbrokers he had wanted to cut to size. Sonia Gandhi's introspection with regard to the organisational machinery of the Congress at the CPP does not carry even one-tenth of the intensity that her late husband carried at that time. Given this background, I cannot be but sceptical," the leader said.

Evidently, the tasks before the Congress leadership, particularly Sonia Gandhi, as she faces a huge mid-term challenge, are indeed arduous.