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SONIA GANDHI - A CHRONICLE ON HER PRESIDENTSHIP
The Congress president Sonia Gandhi’s comments as she begun her 16th year as party chief that being at the helm was “not an easy task” has turned prophetic. Within a fortnight since March 13, 2013, Gandhi saw the UPA, of which she is the chairperson limp into a major political crisis as the southern ally DMK ended their 9-year-old alliance. As one writes this piece racing against a deadline, one can only sympathize with the president of the country’s oldest (127-year-old) Congress party.
She has created history by becoming the longest serving chief of the organization; once led by her towering in-laws Pt Jawaharlal Nehru, Indira Gandhi and husband Rajiv Gandhi. Her political baptism was reluctant and punctuated with immense personal tragedies as she had lost her beloved husband by then; but political watchers say her ascendancy as the party president was almost a coup.
Ironically, this facet in her political graph was almost forgotten from public memory. The bitter critic Narendra Modi reminded the nation on March 3, how Sonia’s predecessor was virtually thrown out of the party president’s post unceremoniously; and Sonia had replaced him to overwhelming enthusiasm among party leaders and thousands of workers across the country.
Now in retrospect, even her worst critic would agree that she has held the Congress party together and more importantly led the party to an unexpected victory in 2004 - when amid the hype of the ‘India Shining’ campaign of the BJP, the pundits had almost written off both herself and her party. She repeated the feat in 2009 again.
“The Congress base in shrinking…,” an upbeat but ‘over confident’ L K Advani had said on the eve of elections in 2004. But when the results poured in on May 13, 2004; it was Sonia Shining instead.
She also created history when she declined to take up the mantle of prime ministership and handed over the reins to economist Dr. Manmohan Singh. “It was a unique experiment for Sonia, the Congress party and the country. Congress never had dual power centres in the recent past. And the country was given a pro-liberalisation Prime Minister supported by Leftists,” says Himanshu Mishra, a senior journalist.
| Sonia’s biggest folly was not allowing emergence of state leaders; this caused her to lose control in Andhra Pradesh”. |
This was in 2004 and almost a full decade since, many Sonia admirers find it difficult to give the Congress the credit of providing credible governance. Even the western media ended the honeymoon with Congress president and her ‘chosen’ Prime Minister, when unhesitatingly some called the latter ‘an underachiever’. “The Congress president Sonia Gandhi has undoubtedly a challenging task in reorganising her party machinery as part of the major revamp plan while charting out the roadmap for the crucial 2014 polls. Her bigger challenge still lies in deciding what role her son, Rahul Gandhi would exactly like to play,” wrote The Statesman newspaper.
In the last 15 years, actually Sonia, Italian-born Christian, stormed through turbulent politics often marred by violent nationalism of Hindu right wing BJP and the Sangh Parivar; but her party has not set any example anywhere, unfortunately. More often the family saga remains an enigma. Son-in—law Robert made news for the wrong reasons and her son failed to deliver both Bihar and UP. “In fact, I was not surprised when Sonia told Rahul that power is poison and reportedly both wept in emotions for a while,” says another political commentator Vidyarthi Kumar alluding to Rahul’s elevation as party vice president. “The irony is Sonia stands vindicated when she initially refused to plunge into politics and had decided only to help out the Congress party,” he says adding perhaps she remains one of the most ‘unhappy persons’ in Indian politics.
Congress MP, Karan Singh says, “Sonia had come at a time when people were leaving the Congress”.
| There is no convincing explanation when Jairam Ramesh, showing performance in the much neglected Sanitation portfolio, was relieved of the responsibility. |
But all these years, all known Congress vices - sycophancy and durbar culture – has not been rectified. The party leadership was expected to do the corrections, more so in the new millennium when the new generation talks more by results and simply have abhorrence for dynastic politics, especially if there is no performance. These charges are predictably brushed aide by Congress leaders and ministers. “Under her guidance UPA-I and II came to power. Under her leadership Congress will go for a hat-trick in 2014. She has taken all sections along and allowed no injustice to genuine party workers,” Congress’ SC-ST Cell Chairman V Hanumanth Rao told Eastern Panorama. In fact, her biographer R Kidwai also talks on similar lines and points out how good ‘coordination’ she could ensure with the Prime Minister. “There was no major conflict on any decision between the Prime Minister and the Congress president. This by itself is a major achievement. I have said it earlier also no matter how much she is ridiculed by BJP and even leaders like P A Sangma and Sharad Pawar as a foreigner, Sonia Gandhi was indeed required by the Congress party to put itself on track,” said Kidwai. However, not many buy this line and allege that most problems the country, the government and that way Sonia’s party have faced in the last 8-9 years is due to a lack of effective coordination between her and the Prime Minister. More so, they say, the performance remained casual. “It’s sad…. What we had in the name of coordination between the party and the government is only at face value. The Congress party was never happy with certain government steps like FDI in retail though we backed it. Similarly, Congress had no guess of any Indo-Pak pact where we talk about Baluchistan,” said one minister strictly on the condition of anonymity.
But whom would she blame when the Congress president decided to have Shivraj Patil as the Home Minister and veteran S M Krishna as the External Affairs Minister? Again there is no convincing explanation when Jairam Ramesh, showing performance in the much neglected Sanitation portfolio, was relieved of the responsibility.
Sonia’s political journey had reached a high point when she walked into Ram Vilas Paswan in 2002 for floating UPA; in the recent months it is also marred by losing allies. But insiders in the AICC, 24 Akbar Road argue that Sonia Gandhi if she has shown limitations, this is also due to wrong advice and wrong coteries. “At the initial phase of her career as president, she had appointed P A Sangma as the chairman of a ‘revamp committee’. But the personal ambitions of Sangma came in between, I will not blame Sonia for it,” says scribe Himanshu Mishra. But all these years, according to another Congress watcher, Harijai Singh, Editor of a New Delhi-based magazine, ‘Power Politics’, “Sonia’s biggest folly was not allowing the emergence of state leaders; this caused her to lose control in Andhra Pradesh”. Gujarat too was handled peculiarly, he adds.
True, in Nagaland, a onetime Congress fiefdom for decades, Sonia’s party was handed the worst defeat in 2013 wherein it could win just 8 seats in the 60-member assembly. The NPF managed a comfortable majority of 38 seats making a clean sweep across the politically sensitive Kohima-Phek-Peren-Eastern Nagaland regions and made inroads into traditional Congress strongholds of Mokokchung-Dimapur and Zunheboto. The Naga voters almost wrote the political obituary for veteran S C Jamir, a former chief minister and an-ex Governor of Goa and Maharashtra. Jamir has now been rehabilitated by Congress high command as the Governor of Odhisa. Now whether such rehabilitation helps revive the party is a million dollar puzzle.
Similarly, there are other problem areas. Her son-in-law Robert Vadra got embroiled into corruption charges. There have been half-a-dozen high profile scandals the ruling establishment has faced in the past eight years. The CAG had alluded to kickbacks and dubious deals in the allocation of 2G telecom licences. Corruption on a massive scale was also alleged in the organizing of the Commonwealth Games, Adarsh housing scheme for war-widows, privatization of Delhi airport, mining scam and the Augusta helicopter scandal. These bring no credit to the Congress party even though Sonia has remarkably stood for rural poor and firm against ‘Hindu communalism’.
