The Congress Working Committee at its recent meeting was more preoccupied with praising Sonia Gandhi's leadership than finding ways to strengthen the party organisation in the States.
PURNIMA S. TRIPATHI in New DelhiON the completion of one year in power at the Centre after 12 years in the Opposition, the Congress was expected to make a strong political statement when the Congress Working Committee (CWC) met on May 16 to take stock of the party's performance. Instead, the party's highest decision-making body spent the time lauding the "unique act of self-abnegation of power" by Sonia Gandhi, which, it said, would remain a "source of inspiration for political workers across the country". There were also laudatory references to the "quiet dignity and qualities of head and heart" that Prime Minister Manmohan Singh brings to his office while achieving the difficult task of running a coalition government.
The resolution passed by the CWC lacked in political direction despite the fact that the Congress was heading a coalition government for the first time at the Centre. Neither was there any hint of introspection about the state of the party in the various States, particularly in the Hindi heartland.
The shoddy handling of certain issues in the past year suggests that Sonia Gandhi as Congress president is not in real control of any given situation, and in the name of consensus merely follows the plans that veterans in the party and hawkish alliance partners make for her. For instance, the recent developments in Bihar and Jharkhand. A Congress insider told Frontline that the decision to dissolve the Bihar Assembly was not taken by Manmohan Singh and Sonia Gandhi alone. It was more the result of the pressure exerted on them by Railway Minister Lalu Prasad of the Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD), Agriculture Minister Sharad Pawar of the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP), (both partners in the ruling United Progressive Alliance), and leaders of the Left parties, which support the government from outside.
The day before the dissolution was announced, these leaders met at Lalu Prasad's Rail Bhavan office and subsequently Lalu Prasad met Home Minister Shivraj Patil and spoke to Sonia Gandhi. By then Steel Minister Ram Vilas Paswan's Lok Janshakti Party (LJP) was on the verge of a split with its newly elected members camping in Jamshedpur in Jharkhand. "She had no option but to go along with them. The choice was between saving the UPA government and dissolution of the Assembly in Bihar. No matter how much she wants to carry Paswan along, she was forced to go with Lalu Prasad and company," said the senior Congress leader.
In fact, party insiders confided, she did try to convince Lalu Prasad to agree to Paswan's proposal of having a non-RJD Chief Minister but Lalu Prasad would not budge. "For him it was Rabri Devi or none," the Congress leader said. The dissolution puts the Congress and Sonia Gandhi in a more piquant situation, having to decide whether to go the whole hog with Lalu Prasad or try and chart an independent course in the new round of elections.
"Having given in to Lalu Prasad's dictates, it is impossible for us to chart an independent course now. We shall now have to latch on to Lalu Prasad even more and pay a heavy price for the 15 years of his misrule there. Whatever little upper caste and Muslim support came our way in the recent past will go back to the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) and the RJD respectively once again," said the senior leader, who has been involved actively in the developments in Bihar in the recent past.
Sonia Gandhi makes no secret of the fact that she is clueless about Bihar. In her personal interaction with the media after the CWC meeting, she gave no hint whether she had any plan to rejuvenate the party in the Hindi belt. When quizzed on the series of mistakes the party made in Bihar since the time seat-sharing talks began with Lalu Prasad during the last round of Assembly elections, she merely said, "Bihar is Bihar, lets leave it at that."
The Congress tried hard until the last moment to carry both the LJP and the RJD with it, but ended up falling between two stools. In what it thought was a smart move, it struck an alliance with the RJD on its sitting seats and on the rest it aligned with Paswan. In the process, it was seen to be neither with the RJD nor with the LJP, and the voters refused to accept it as an authentic anti-Lalu Prasad alternative. It could win only 10 seats in the 243-member Assembly. "In fact, senior leaders [Arjun Singh, Makhanlal Fotedar and Ahmad Patel] who were entrusted by Sonia Gandhi to handle Bihar made a mess of things and she had no real control over what was happening," said a senior Congress leader who saw no merit in going with both Lalu Prasad and Paswan.
Similar lack of control on Sonia Gandhi's part was seen during the political crisis in Jharkhand. The party erred both at the time of seat-sharing talks and in handling the situation that presented itself after the polls. Arjun Singh, M.L. Fotedar and Subodhkant Sahay, who were in charge of the seat-sharing talks with the partners, made the mistake of keeping Lalu Prasad out of the loop. "Where is Lalu Prasad in Jharkhand? We will talk to him when the Bihar talks begin," Arjun Singh had quipped while seat-sharing talks were going on with Shibu Soren's Jharkhand Mukti Morcha (JMM).
Lalu Prasad not only fielded candidates in all constituencies in Jharkhand, but also adopted a stubborn attitude in Bihar on the question of seats for the Congress. The UPA paid a heavy price for the division of its votes and ended up losing Jharkhand. In the post-poll situation, Sonia Gandhi's trusted lieutenants Priyaranjan Dasmunshi, Subodhkant Sahay and Ajit Jogi, who were put in charge of installing a UPA government, allegedly misreported the ground situation so blatantly that the party suffered the humiliation of asking Soren, who had been installed as Chief Minister, to step down and seeing the installation of a Bharatiya Janata Party-led NDA government.
Said a Congress leader: "In Jharkhand also, she was first given a totally wrong picture, that the majority of the MLAs were with us. Then she was not informed about some of the members supporting us, such as Enos Ekka (independent) and Kamlesh Singh (NCP), changing sides. This led to the confusion. Some Central leaders who did not want to see a Soren-led government added to the confusion, leading to the drama in the Jharkhand Assembly on March 11. This was an embarrassment for the party. And once it became inevitable that Soren would either have to step down or have to be dismissed, we had no option but to declare that Sonia Gandhi had no hand in the goings on there.".
It may sound naive, but this loyalist insists that Sonia Gandhi had no control over what was happening in Jharkhand during the government-formation drama. Her lack of total control in handling tricky political situations has been compounded by the hawkishness of allies such as Sharad Pawar and Lalu Prasad. "They are both playing their own games. Pawar, upset by the denial of the Chief Minister's post for his party in Maharashtra, is up to his own tricks. On the eve of the March 11 trial of strength in Jharkhand he was spotted having dinner with BJP leader Pramod Mahajan. The next morning, in Ranchi, Kamlesh Singh reported sick and got himself admitted to hospital. It eventually led to the UPA losing power in the State and a BJP-led government being installed," said a senior Congress leader. There could not have been a bigger embarrassment for Sonia Gandhi, say party leaders.
In Uttar Pradesh, too, the Congress seems to be groping for direction. The ruling Samajwadi Party (S.P.) in the State and the major Opposition party, the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP), support it from outside at the Centre, yet the party's relations with them are at their worst. War of words between Congress and S.P. leaders has become routine. Rahul Gandhi, who represents Amethi in Uttar Pradesh in the Lok Sabha, has been on attack mode against the S.P., alleging neglect of his constituency by the State government.
As for the BSP, the party hoped that Mayawati would eventually come on board, but that was not to be. With the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) tightening its noose around her in the Taj corridor case and investigation in another case, involving assets disproportionate to her known sources of income, making progress, Mayawati is back to attacking the Congress, clubbing it in the same manuwaadi league as the BJP.
Faced with such formidable foes in Uttar Pradesh, how the party proposes to improve its stock is anybody's guess. What worries senior Congress leaders the most is the fact that there has been no discussion in the party on how to strengthen the organisation. "Even after the Bihar and Jharkhand debacles, there has been no session for introspection. This CWC meeting could have taken a real hard look at the ground realities, but that did not happen. There is every possibility that we shall continue making the same mistakes as before," said a senior party leader.
In fact, regional leaders are increasingly exerting their influence in the party even at the centre, as Punjab Chief Minister Captain Amarinder Singh did last year over the water-sharing agreement with Haryana and Rajasthan. On July 12, 2004, he unilaterally terminated the 1981 agreement with these States on sharing the waters of the Ravi, the Beas and the Sutlej, virtually endangering the federal structure. This action followed the Supreme Court directive on June 4, 2004, to Punjab to complete the construction of its portion of the Sutlej-Yamuna Link Canal within four weeks. The court also directed the government of India to take control of the canal works within a month of the apex court's decision.
Sonia Gandhi summoned Amarinder Singh but failed to convince him to withdraw the termination. He justified it on the grounds that Punjab was suffering from water scarcity and could not release water for Haryana and Rajasthan, a stand that made him popular with the people and made his removal a tough task.
This open defiance at a time when Haryana was gearing up for elections was a direct blow to Sonia Gandhi's authority. The Centre, too, could not act decisively at that time. It only sought guidance from the Supreme Court and then asked for a presidential reference under Article 143 of the Constitution.
On the organisational front, too, Sonia Gandhi has not been able to contain the infighting in the State unit of the party. Despite her best efforts, Rajinder Kaur Bhattal and her supporters continue to be angry with Amarinder Singh's style of functioning. As a result, the party performed poorly in the Lok Sabha elections. But Sonia Gandhi is yet to act decisively in the matter.
In Uttar Pradesh, where Salman Khursheed is the Pradesh Congress Committee president, the party is plagued by infighting. Veteran leaders Pramod Tiwari and Jagdambika Pal, who are identified with S.P. president and Chief Minister Mulayam Singh Yadav, have been stoking rebellion and so far Sonia Gandhi has been unable to do anything. "She will turn to Uttar Pradesh after the organisational elections are over by the end of this month," said a Congress leader from Lucknow.
Elsewhere, especially in States where elections are due next year, the Congress is not in a good health. In Kerala, where the Assembly elections are due in May next year, senior leader K. Karunakaran has finally broken away from the party. Although Sonia Gandhi is of the opinion that he was damaging the party more from inside, Karunakaran still has nuisance value and could cause more damage to the party than anyone can guess now. As it is, the Congress' rout in Kerala in the Lok Sabha elections, despite the fact that it is a ruling party in the State, speaks volumes about the state of the party's health. In West Bengal, the party is faced with the dilemma of fighting the Left, whose support is essential for the survival of the UPA government at the Centre. Senior Congress leaders are already writing off West Bengal as a lost case. There were talks of bringing Nationalist Trinamul Congress leader Mamata Banerjee on board, but that has been put on hold for now. There is no other plan of action to revive the party in West Bengal.
"Fighting the Left in West Bengal would be even more difficult for us than before," a senior leader admitted. The Left, which opposes vociferously some of the government's economic moves, has a backup plan to face voters. The Congress has no such contingency plan yet.
However, Sonia Gandhi can take solace from the fact that there has been no direct challenge to her position at the helm. Her unanimous election as party president on May 28 only reiterates this. Except for the rebellion by Sharad Pawar and P.A. Sangma in 1998 on the issue of her foreign origin, there has been no challenge to her leadership so far. The impact of Karunakaran in Kerala is yet to be judged.
The only other time she faced a challenge to her leadership was during the organisational elections in the party five years ago when Jitendra Prasada contested against her for the presidency. True, she has not had to face the kind of rebellion that Indira Gandhi faced from the "Syndicate" of Congress veterans, or that Rajiv Gandhi faced when V.P. Singh challenged his authority and walked out.
If Sonia Gandhi has not faced a rebellion of such a magnitude, it is perhaps because her control over the party apparatus is not so tight. Individual leaders are able to have their way and still be in the party. Senior Congress leaders admit that Sonia Gandhi's leadership is an established fact now, but that is mostly because Congressmen realise that she is their key to power, their ladder to glory.
However, even this realisation has not stopped them from fighting among themselves and, on her part, Sonia Gandhi has failed to control them. That is also perhaps why, despite being in power for one year, the party machinery seems to have dithered and lagged behind. And while some of the allies are sulking (Soren, Paswan), others are playing their own little games (Lalu Prasad, Pawar), and the seasoned hands inside the organisation are on their own individual trips.
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