The Nation: Congress; For Sonia's Sake

The party introspects on its worst electoral debacle. But concluding that the failure was due to 'ill-advised' steps, it neatly skirts the awkward questions.

The problem with being the court physician to the presiding deity of 10 Janpath is that the prescribed medicine must be palatable. Even if it is completely unrelated to the ailment. So the 11-member Introspection Committee, headed by former Kerala chief minister A.K. Antony, discovered to its cost while preparing the voluminous "From Perception to Prescription" report on the Congress' worst electoral debacle in history.

ANTONY'S DIAGNOSIS

ANTONY'S PRESCRIPTION

ť The Congress debacle was the result of a series of ill-advised decisions. These include: offering support to the Rabri Devi's RJD Government in Bihar, the tea-party understanding with Jayalalitha and the mishandling of the Kargil issue.
ť There were too many organisational lapses. The CWC is no longer a representative body. Many members lack grassroot support. Of the 22 members in the committee, 10 contested the Lok Sabha elections, of whom only five won. In addition, the structure of the AICC is too top-heavy.
ť The Vajpayee factor. This was specially true in the case of Madhya Pradesh.

ť Party leadership should review alliances with regional parties like the RJD and the AIADMK. It must also make the right overtures to former party members like G.K. Moopanar and Mamata Banerjee.
ť Tone up the organisation at all levels. Identify the non-performers and initiate appropriate action against them. Replace the unwieldy AICC structure with a lean and mean decision-making body.
ť The leadership should call for micro-level inputs and rely on back-up support based on extensive ground research rather than impressionistic assessments made by individuals.

The symptoms of a sick party were all too evident to the members as they criss-crossed the country taking evidence from party leaders in Lucknow, Calcutta, Imphal, Agartala, Guwahati, Hyderabad, Ahmedabad, Bhopal and Mumbai, besides meeting other stalwarts in Delhi. The problem was in stating in bland terms what every Congressman instinctively knew: that the fish rots from the head.

The result was a series of coded messages whose implications were all too obvious to everyone, except those who chose to be wilfully obtuse. "We were there neither to investigate nor interrogate," said committee Convener Mani Shankar Aiyar whose facility with words proved invaluable in separating diagnosis from prescription.

The single copy of the 200-page blue, spiral-bound report -- handed to Congress President Sonia Gandhi in a ceremonial function -- felt that the party went to the polls at a severe political disadvantage because of a "series of ill-advised decisions" whose impact was magnified on account of "organisational lapses". Among the "ill-advised" steps were the decision to support the Rabri Devi Government in Bihar, the leader's meeting with AIADMK leader J. Jayalalitha at a tea party in Delhi and the failure to form an alternative government in Delhi after the BJP-led government was defeated by a single vote. The last factor, the committee felt, was particularly crucial. Nearly 57 per cent of those interviewed attributed the failure to form an alternative government as the reason behind the Congress debacle. Significantly, as much as 40 per cent pinned the blame on the Congress' strident attack on the government during the Kargil war and after.

In both these cases, the role of Sonia was crucial. It was her "we have 272" remark outside Rashtrapati Bhavan that set the cat among the pigeons and prompted Mulayam Singh Yadav's non-cooperation. Likewise, Sonia was in the forefront of the attacks on the government's conduct of the Kargil war. So, did the committee note the leader's culpability? Not a chance. She was merely "ill-advised". This leader didn't lead, she selectively acted on bad advice. So the committee's recommendation is focused: shoot the advisers. The leader is always infallible.

The committee did, however, broach the issue of Sonia's foreign origin. Only to come up with a resounding not-guilty verdict. Of the 1,200 written responses to a questionnaire, only 6 per cent thought the foreigner argument cut ice with the electorate. This they blamed squarely on the Sharad Pawar-P.A. Sangma-Tariq Anwar spoilsports.

So why did the Congress get thrashed in the election? For a start, the committee felt that reports of the debacle were vastly exaggerated. In 132 seats, the in-house psephologists pointed out, the margin of defeat was less than 50,000 votes. In other words, the Congress did actually come within a whisker of being the single-largest party. If only a few more lakhs had voted for it.

So why didn't more people vote for the Congress? And why was the performance better in the assembly elections? Predictably, the committee fell back on the hoary excuse: organisational unpreparedness. It was the same reasoning the party gave after the crowds Sonia drew in 1998 failed to translate into votes or seats. Now history repeats itself, with fewer seats in the Lok Sabha. "We have made certain radical housekeeping suggestions," says Aiyar, "which if implemented could easily make us the single-largest party." These include making the Working Committee lean and mean. In short, weeding out the undesirables, some real and others inconvenient. And basing political decision-making on solid research rather than impressionistic assessments. That means more paper for the report-loving Sonia to read and some jobs for well-disposed market-research bodies.

The committee did touch upon the Atal Bihari Vajpayee factor in swaying the electorate. It said this was the case in Madhya Pradesh. But it stayed silent on the subject of Vajpayee's adversary. The prime minister won in a presidential-style election because he was felt to be more impressive. Who was this opponent? And why weren't people impressed by her claims for the top job? The report is understandably silent. After all, there would be nothing "constructive" if the matter was further probed.

Again, if the party suffered on ill-considered alliances in Bihar (where the arrangement has been terminated), why did it deviate from the Pachmarhi declaration? In that case, was Pachmarhi wrong or the alliance strategy right? If the committee now favours bringing the Tamil Maanila Congress and the Trinamool Congress back to the fold, will it eschew alliances with the AIADMK and its cosy relationship with the CPI(M)?

To be fair, Antony wasn't expected either to address or answer these awkward questions. His brief was to circumnavigate the politics behind the debacle and focus on "constructive" suggestions such as the need for more booth committees. Of course, there is a coded sub-text, the deciphering of which must await another electoral debacle.

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