Hard lessons

Congress president Sonia Gandhi with former Chief Minister S.M. Krishna at a campaign rally in Mangalore on May 13.-R. ESWAR RAJAT

The Congress reaction to the Karnataka result makes no secret of the confusion that has come to dominate it.

Political play at the national level following the elections to the Karnataka State Assembly was delineated succinctly by two actions taken by the countrys mainstream political forces the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance (UPA) and the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA) immediately after the proclamation of the verdict on May 25. BJP president Rajnath Singh made a public pronouncement that the partys victory in Karnataka would boost the preparations of the NDA for the forthcoming Assembly elections in Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh and Delhi. He followed it up with directions to the State units of the BJP to start work on the ground in coordination with other NDA partners and Sangh Parivar outfits.

On the other hand, one of the first actions of the Congress was to call off a meeting it had fixed with the Communist Party of India (Marxist)-led Left parties to discuss further steps on the Indo-U.S. nuclear deal. Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, Congress president Sonia Gandhi and Left leaders, including CPI(M) general secretary Prakash Karat, were to participate in the meeting, originally fixed for May 28. The meeting was considered crucial in deciding the fate of the nuclear deal. But the government, obviously, was of the view that the crucial decision could wait.

These two actions spoke for themselves. The move by the BJP president demonstrated his partys confidence and resolve to go forward politically and organisationally, without resting on its laurels, and make new gains. The Congress leaderships action, on the other hand, made no secret of the deep sense of confusion that had come to dominate it, politically, administratively and organisationally. In the run-up to the Karnataka polls, the leadership of the Congress as well as some constituents of the UPA held the belief that the Congress would, at least, emerge as the single largest party in the State and that this would bestow it with greater political authority to negotiate with the Left parties and overcome their opposition to the nuclear deal. That did not happen and it was clear that the Congress leadership had not thought of an alternative plan of action.

Referring to the postponement of the Congress-Left meet on the nuclear deal, and especially the leaderships lack of an alternative plan in the event of an adverse verdict in Karnataka, an Uttar Pradesh Congress leader told Frontline that this had become the wont in the party in recent times. Almost all segments of the leadership seem to be working on the basis of a pre-conceived notion without considering objectively the variety of factors that may impact and influence the many issues that they have to deal with from time to time, he said. The leader, who is seriously considering leaving the Congress to join the ruling Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) in Uttar Pradesh, pointed out that the tradition of fixing responsibility and making leaders and committees accountable for the same was also becoming a thing of the past in the countrys oldest political outfit.

The specific responses of the Congress leadership to the Karnataka verdict underlined the veracity of these observations. If senior Congress leaders are to be believed, the Karnataka debacle had nothing to do with anti-incumbency sentiments working against the Centre, price rise, high inflation rates, or even the failure of the partys central leadership to enthuse the voters even after a long spell of instability in the State. It was merely because of local factors such as irregularities in the voters list and organisational weaknesses at the grassroots level, said senior Congress leader and Union Minister Oscar Fernandes (see interview). Fernandes, who has been twice Karnataka Congress president in the past, went on to add that malpractices by the BJP and irregularities in the voters list after the delimitation contributed in a major way to the Congress loss. This was a serious matter that we had brought to the Election Commissions notice. They said correcting it would take at least six months, but within a week they said everything was all right. This resulted in serious irregularities in the voters list and many of our voters were denied the right to vote, he said.

The message from Fernandes line of reasoning is clear. If one was expecting the Congress to do some serious introspection after the defeat in Karnataka, that is not happening. The many issues that have been highlighted by party activists at various levels and political observers are being dismissed as inconsequential by large sections of the leadership.

The question about the central leaderships ambiguity in projecting a chief ministerial candidate is a case in point. Fernandes and other top leaders close to 10 Janpath are not ready to agree that this may have cost the Congress a few seats. All that they would admit is that the State unit had too many heavyweights and almost all of them had aspirations of occupying the top post.

However, many leaders do admit in private that these heavyweights did undermine one anothers prospect and that this resulted in damaging the partys overall performance. According to a senior Congress leader who is a member of the All India Congress Committee, the fact that over two dozen aspirants were denied the ticket at the last minute, causing a rebellion in the party (many of them contested as independents and won), is proof that the leaders were fighting among themselves. If our State leadership was more united, we would have done better, he said.

Some of the steps taken by the party high command only helped to increase the divide among the heavyweights in the State unit. The late induction of former Chief Minister S.M. Krishna into the campaign was one such counter-productive move. On the one hand, it gave conflicting signals to Karnataka Pradesh Congress Committee president Mallikarjun Kharges Dalit supporters about his chief ministerial prospects and at another level even Krishnas supporters were exasperated because there was no guarantee that the former Chief Minister would be given the top position once again.

The role of the Congress high command, including that of party president Sonia Gandhi and her close associates such as Ahmed Patel, in making these mistakes and half-hearted measures is evident and yet there is no direct reference to it in the post-election analysis within the party. As an incensed leader from South India pointed out to Frontline, this is the special style of inner-party democracy in Congress. You never speak anything against the supreme leader, even as the leader goes on rewarding those who led the party to successive defeats, be they in Gujarat, Himachal Pradesh or Karnataka. In spite of all his righteous indignation, even this South Indian leader dare not say anything openly against the number one family of the Congress.

However, there is considerable private discussion among party activists at various levels about this and related issues. These discussions cover both political and organisational failures of the high command. The primary focus is on organisational matters, but policy issues such as the inability to devise administrative mechanisms to control price rise and agrarian crisis in many States, including Karnataka form part of the debate. The question whether the conspicuous pro-U.S. tilt in foreign policy has alienated sections of the electorate, especially the Muslim minorities, who form a sizable segment of the voters in Karnataka, is also part of the debate.

In terms of Congress organisation, these private conversations also reflect the thought that Sonia Gandhi needs to be more assertive while taking decisions on State matters. The conversations reflect the idea that madam is diffident in taking on the regional satraps in various States and is wary of offending any one of them. This was visible both in Gujarat and Karnataka, where in spite of putting up good electoral battles, we failed to project a chief ministerial candidate. This was basically on account of the fear of offending one or the other regional leader, but obviously the high command would have to choose one of them after the polls. Why not make the decision right at the beginning and face the consequences? asked a middle-level Congress leader from Delhi.

But how would the high command know unless someone decides to inform it about the thinking in the different echelons of the party? That is a moot question, which has no response from these leaders and activists. As this silence reigns, the Congress hurtles from defeat to defeat. In sheer statistical terms, Karnataka marks the 11th State election that the Congress lost under Sonia Gandhis leadership.

Another point discussed after the Karnataka debacle is the effectiveness of Rahul Gandhi in attracting votes. As part of his Discover India yatra, Rahul had extensively toured Karnataka, especially its Dalit- and tribal-dominated areas, but the results from these seats were far from encouraging. Of 36 Scheduled Caste (S.C.) seats in Karnataka, the Congress could win only 10 as against 22 by the BJP, three by Independents and one by the Janata Dal (Secular). Of the 15 Scheduled Tribe (S.T.) seats, the Congress and the BJP shared seven each while the JD(S) bagged one seat. Overall, out of the 54 Assembly seats where Rahul campaigned in the run-up to the elections, the Congress won only 22.

While Congress spokesman Manish Tiwari said it is wrong to point out a single individual for victory or defeat since an election is fought collectively, Fernandes insisted that Rahuls impact was tremendous. But one thing is for sure, that even after impressive road shows in States such as Uttar Pradesh and Gujarat, where, too, the Congress lost heavily, Rahuls role in campaigning and his style of functioning would increasingly get discussed in disparaging tones.

Both Tiwari and Fernandes seem to anticipate this. There is no single reason for victory or defeat; there are many reasons. Assembly elections are contested on local issues, said Tiwari, a point corroborated by Fernandes, who said, This is an election and victory and defeat are a part of the game. We win some and we lose some. We accept our defeat with humility and will try to do better next time.

But even as leaders and activists at various levels of the Congress hierarchy try to cover up for Rahul and Sonia Gandhi, the BJP has decided to make it an instrument of campaign, with the particular objective of exposing the lack of leadership skills of the top duo in the Congress and thus try to alienate some of the smaller parties in the UPA from that party. This is nothing but a verdict against Sonia Gandhis leadership, said senior BJP leader Sushma Swaraj. According to BJP insiders, the campaign has already started showing some impact as some of the UPA partners have started sending peace-making feelers to the BJP or some other constituent of the NDA. Rajnath Singh also stated, while talking to Frontline, that the BJP saw the distinct possibility of the Congress getting isolated from many of its partners in the UPA.

The Karnataka victory has imparted two intra-organisational benefits too to the BJP. It has helped gloss over some organisational problems and pushes them under the carpet. Before the elections were held, the top leadership of the BJP was getting into a kind of tumult, especially on account of some of the revelations in Lal Krishna Advanis autobiography, My Country, My Life. Former Union Ministers Jaswant Singh and Yashwant Sinha publicly questioned the veracity of some of the statements made in the book, literally challenging the credibility of a leader who was recently anointed as the Prime Minister-designate of the party.

There were also instances such as the resignation of Maharashtra leader Gopinath Munde from all organisational positions in protest against the appointment of his bete noire in an important position. All these issues have been conveniently pushed aside in the euphoric context of the Karnataka victory. At another level, leaders of the BJP and the Sangh Parivar point out that the Karnataka victory enhances the supremacy that BJP has over its NDA partners.

There is an attempt within sections of the Congress leadership to use voting percentage figures as a counter to the BJPs campaign. Talking to Frontline, Fernandes pointed out that the Congress had bagged the largest vote share and that the partys seats had gone up to 80 from 65 in the 2004 Assembly elections. The Congress got 34.6 per cent of the votes compared with the 33.9 per cent of the BJP. However, this argument does not highlight the fact that the Congress vote share is 0.7 percent point lower than what it got last time. Also, the BJPs vote share, though still less than that of the Congress, has increased by a substantial 5.6 percentage points from its share in 2004. This clearly indicates that the BJPs growth in the southern State has been fast. Clearly, arguments highlighting the voting percentage supremacy do not help in covering up the lack of leadership as well as the absence of policies and programmes that appeal to the common people.

As with the leadership question, the absence of people-oriented policies and programmes also figures in private discussions in a section of the Congress and UPA leaders. Some of these leaders admit that it is time the government advanced programmes such as the waiver of farm loans and the National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (NREGS) with greater determination. They also emphasise the need to control the price rise in essential commodities. At the same time, there are also pro-liberalisation leaders within the party who argue that the political prospects of the Congress cannot be turned around in the period left for the general elections. If held on schedule, the general elections are due around May 2009.

The opinion of this section, which includes a number of Ministers and leaders considered close to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, is that the next round of Assembly elections in States such as Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh may not witness any real improvement in the political fortunes of the Congress. These sections do not go by the local factors caused defeat and hold that the party is facing all-round deterioration.

The results of the byelections to Lok Sabha seats from a number of States are highlighted by this section to advance its point. In Maharashtra, the Shiv Sena retained the Thane Lok Sabha constituency with Anand Paranjpe winning with an impressive margin of 86,000 votes against his nearest rival, Sanjeev Naik of the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP). In Meghalaya, the NCPs Agatha Kongkal Sangma, daughter of former Lok Sabha Speaker Purno Sangma, won the Tura Lok Sabha seat by a record 181,760 votes, defeating the Congress Zenith Sangma, and in Himachal Pradesh the BJPs Anurag Thakur, son of Chief Minister Prem Kumar Dhumal, won the Hamirpur Lok Sabha seat by a margin of nearly 175,000 votes.

Consequently, the analysis of this section in the party is that, it would be better for the Congress to push ahead with its neoliberal policies and other contentious initiatives such as the Indo-U.S. nuclear deal, unapologetically and without worrying about the longevity of the government. This section also points out that there is no guarantee that the Left would support the government till the end of its tenure, if the government abandons the nuclear deal. Hence, they feel, the government should proceed with the deal and showcase it as an achievement aimed at ensuring energy security for the country and providing power to farmers. By all indications, the Prime Minister himself is inclined to this view. The postponement of the May 28 Left-UPA consultative committee meeting is perceived to be the result of pressure from this section in the government.

The next meeting of the UPA-Left consultative committee is tentatively scheduled for the second week of June. Large sections in the Congress, apparently, believe that the leadership will come up with a clear political policy and plan of action by that period. Whether it will involve sacrificing the government and going in for early elections or persisting with it by making adjustments with the Left and other allies is to be seen.

Whatever the course the Congress leadership chooses, one thing is indisputable. Unless it clears the overwhelming sense of confusion that prevails within its political, ideological and organisational spheres, the Congress cannot stop the well-oiled BJP political-organisational machinery from making repeated electoral gains by default.