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THE NATION: CONGRESS
Unlucky Hand
The Congress needs to fill the leadership vacuum
created by the death of Madhavrao Scindia soon if it is to remain a force
as the Opposition
By Lakshmi Iyer
Since June 2000,
the Congress has been under a malevolent spell. In the past 15 months,
the party has lost in rapid succession three leaders of considerable stature
and vigour-Rajesh Pilot, Jitendra Prasada and Madhavrao Scindia.
Both Scindia and Pilot were youthful and charismatic,
invoked a strong caste-bonding and possessed linguistic skills and an
ability to get repeatedly elected to the Lok Sabha without the high command's
crutches. They were star campaigners in the Hindi-speaking states. In
Parliament, Scindia particularly brought to bear his three-decade experience.
As the Congress' deputy leader, he made up for Sonia Gandhi's utter lack
of debating skills and knowledge of parliamentary procedures. Which is
why his untimely death raised alarmist fears about the Congress' survival
as an effective Opposition.
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POWER OF ONE: A popular leader, Scindia will be missed by
the Congress
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Within the Congress, such doomsday tidings have
few takers. Several party leaders-who were members of the Lok Sabha and
aspired to fill the deputy leader's post Scindia held-privately repudiate
such theories. They blame the media for portraying Scindia's passing away
as a catastrophe for the party, saying it misleads not just Congressmen
but the entire nation. Scindia was not the only person on whom Sonia relied
to conduct party affairs, they point out.
"It is aimed at showing our party president
as a nincompoop. In the deaths of leaders like Pilot and Scindia, the
Congress has certainly lost very important leaders but to suggest that
the party is orphaned would be stretching it too far," says a CWC
member. The party's parliamentary strategies, he insists, were devised
after wide consultations. "It takes many years to nurture a leader.
In that sense the passing away of leaders like Pilot and Scindia is a
big loss but not an insurmountable one."
To a large extent the Congress' confidence in
its resilience is rooted in the axiom that the death of a leader does
not leave a vacuum, it only creates a vacancy. Any Congress leader of
consequence believes leaders are not born but are created through sheer
elevation to party positions. "All you need to have are resources
to generate a hype in the media that you matter," says two-term MP
from Mayiladuthurai Mani Shankar Aiyar. After all, leadership is not just
a matter of gathering crowds and making speeches. "The only political
leader who has become prime minister because of his oratorical skills
is Atal Bihari Vajpayee."
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| RARE RAPPORT: Scindia (right) was
among the few Congressmen who enjoyed Sonia's confidence
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As for parliamentary performance, Aiyar vouches
that the party has enough members with requisite linguistic and debating
skills to rap the Government. This is a point even a Scindia acolyte like
party's Lok Sabha whip Satyavrat Chaturvedi concedes. He points out how
a second line of leaders always remain hidden and comes to the fore when
given an opportunity. "Scindia was a very tall leader. No one can
match him. But his death does not mean that the party is going downhill."
Nevertheless, the Congress, specifically Sonia,
will not only have to look for someone to shore it up in the Lok Sabha
but will have to seek a replacement for its most acceptable and recognisable
face in north India. One name that comes to mind is another feudal lord-turned-politician
who is probably as recognisable as Scindia himself but has never been
closely associated with politics at the Centre. Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister
Digvijay Singh is well-educated, suave, charismatic and is perhaps politically
more astute than Scindia. But the big questions is: will Sonia trust him
enough to move him to the Lok Sabha?
Digvijay himself has expressed his desire to
remain in the state for a few more years but that self-appraisal may have
to be altered in view of fact that after the departure of Scindia and
Prasada there are no Rajput leaders left in the upper echelons of the
party. Arjun Singh's best years are clearly behind him-and in any case
he is in the Rajya Sabha-and though N.D. Tiwari's legendary oratorical
skills are still intact the veteran Congress leader does not enjoy Sonia's
complete confidence. At present there are many contenders for the deputy
leader's post but the race has narrowed down to AICC General Secretary
Kamal Nath and party chief whip Priyaranjan Dasmunshi. Nath has been given
weightage in the party by Sonia but he clearly does not enjoy the kind
of trust that Scindia did to take him to the No. 2 slot inside the House.
As for Dasmunshi, his role in botching up the UTI scam debate and, more
recently, the forged cabinet secretary note controversy, eminently disqualify
him.
Where do they have the leaders to match the
BJP's second line of Pramod Mahajan, Arun Jaitley, Arun Shourie and Venkaiah
Naidu?" asks former Madhya Pradesh chief minister Sunderlal Patwa.
The Congress cupboard looks especially bare against the backdrop of the
impending Uttar Pradesh assembly elections. That perhaps explains why
many partymen outside Parliament don't share the optimism of the MPs that
the Congress will cope with the loss of leaders like Scindia and Pilot.
Former Uttar Pradesh Congress Committee chief Salman Khurshid feels the
nursery that produced leaders like Scindia and Pilot has closed down.
Clearly, five years out of power have led to
stagnation in the party. Every ruling party gets an opportunity to create
new leaders. In the Congress, however, existing leaders are unmade. "If
our members do make an impact in the Lok Sabha it is because the best
ones are outside the House. We have leaders who are just cut out to be
ministers but are hopeless as ordinary MPs," says a former MP. He
points out how the BJP brought leaders like Jaswant Singh and Mahajan
to the Rajya Sabha even after they lost Lok Sabha elections.
For some years now, Congress leaders have been
those who were groomed by Indira, Rajiv or Sanjay. Both Scindia and Pilot
had begun their ministerial career as ministers of state in the Rajiv
government. The mainstay of the party now are Sanjay's legacy-AICC general
secretaries Ambika Soni and Kamal Nath. Both of them are good party managers
but not popular leaders. "There is no mastermind in the party to
make leaders of men," confesses a former Union minister. The only
consolation for the Congress is that the process of creating leaders from
the cadre is vanishing in rival parties too.
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