August 10, 1998

The Gandhi matriarch plunges into mass politics, takes to the streets and prepares for state polls.

By Javed M Ansari

Two decades ago, the world was a simple place. Siblings Richard and Karen Carpenter ruled the pop charts and the Congress ruled India unhindered. The average Congresswallah may have absolutely nothing to do with the Carpenters, but on July 28 he could well have been singing one of their biggest hits: Yesterday Once More.

For the party, it was nostalgia time with a vengeance. There strode Mrs Gandhi, marching briskly, if jerkily, down the streets of Delhi, warning her rivals, wailing about rising prices. It wasn't Indira Gandhi of course -- but her daughter-in-law, Sonia.

The rally against galloping prices may have been small (the crowd was estimated at 50,000) but it marked Sonia's debut in agitational politics. Actually, it was not one BJP government Sonia was targeting but two: the one at the Centre and the state administration in Delhi.

Sonia is working on the assumption that the road to Delhi lies through Delhi. It is an idea which may be grammatically challenged but is politically challenging. Assembly elections in Delhi (and Rajasthan) are coming up in November. The Congress smells its chance, given gross mismanagement by the BJP regimes.

In Delhi for one, Chief Minister Sahib Singh Verma has proved unequal to the task of tackling water and power scarcities and crime. The very middle-class constituency that was the BJP's vote bank now points fingers at Verma. Sonia hopes to whip this simmering anger into a vicious backlash at the assembly elections. If the BJP is vanquished in Delhi, the Congress reckons a psychological impulse will be created which will threaten even the Central government.

No wonder Sonia scoffed during the rally, "These people cannot run the capital. How can they be trusted with the whole country?" A particularly ecstatic Jag Pravesh Chandra, leader of the Opposition in the Delhi Assembly, likened it to a "revolt" against an unresponsive government. He had reason to be pleased. Should the Congress come to power in Delhi this winter, Chandra, along with Sonia-loyalist Sheila Dikshit, will be a contender for chief minister.

With the Delhi assembly tantalisingly within grasp, Sonia is plotting a countdown for Atal Bihari Vajpayee's ministry as well. On July 28, the Congress president finally shrugged off the reputation of being a drawing-room politico. By her actions, she told inner-party rivals like Sharad Pawar that she was not afraid of mass movements.

There was a lesson for other non-BJP groups too -- primarily, Laloo and Mulayam Yadav's Rashtriya Loktantrik Morcha and the CPI(M) -- which have been urging her to overthrow Vajpayee's fragile coalition. By leading the protest march, Sonia was in effect conveying her impatience with a political agenda limited to backroom manoeuvring. As the BJP government ties itself up in new knots every day, Sonia is all for giving it a long rope -- confident that the long-term beneficiary can only be the Congress.

Whatever the correctness of her perceptions, Sonia is certainly a more focused and trenchant political being today. The shy woman who depended on intermediaries like Satish Sharma to win over Mulayam is history. Sonia is negotiating directly today. Even the acerbic Jyoti Basu, who once dismissed her as a "housewife", had a 15-minute telephonic chat with her just before he left for London. Sonia first softened him by requesting him to attend a seminar at the Rajiv Gandhi Foundation before coming to the point: would the Marxists back P.M. Sayeed in the Lok Sabha deputy speaker's election?

It was perhaps the return of such vintage politics which had Congress spokesman Ajit Jogi exclaiming after the rally: "We have now begun to perform like a real opposition party." Next on the Sonia manifesto is a rally in Mumbai on August 9, the 56th anniversary of the Quit India Movement's launch. Then comes the August 20 public meeting in Delhi, coinciding with Rajiv Gandhi's birthday. The family is back in business.

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