May 24, 1999
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CONGRESS Welcome Aboard Sonia is inviting deserters from other parties because she doesn't want the Congress to be encumbered with too many coalition partners. By Sumit Mitra
The centrepiece of the strategy is to face the BJP-led coalition single-handedly. Sonia, who often addresses party elders without the aid of prepared texts nowadays, cites the Pachmarhi declaration that says the party needs to be "restored to its primacy in national affairs". A senior member of the Congress Working Committee (CWC) said that the party would field candidates in at least 400 constituencies, while "party-to-party cooperation" is possible only with three large parties -- the aiadmk in Tamil Nadu, the RJD in Bihar and the BSP in Uttar Pradesh -- apart from a clutch of smaller parties like the Republican Party of India (RPI) in Maharashtra and the Congress' traditional UDF partners in Kerala. As party spokesperson Ajit Jogi says, "While the BJP is promising at best a coalition government, the Congress promises a government of its own." Rather than enlisting the support of other parties, the Congress has begun nibbling at them in search of potential deserters. In CWC member Arjun Singh's evocative words, these are the "migratory birds" expected to flock in when, after the toppling of the Atal Bihari Vajpayee government, the party vainly looked for support in Parliament. Their biological clock failed then but has begun chiming now. Former Congress minister Kalpnath Rai, who scraped through on a Samata Party ticket last year, rejoined the party with fanfare, with wife Sudha using the photo-op to hug Sonia and offer her sweets. While the sweet had a mixed taste for Sonia with the unsavoury fact that Rai had indeed voted for Vajpayee in the confidence vote on April 23, there was a still a logic in the re-entry of a veteran Congressman. However, the party was taken by surprise when Sonia admitted Renuka Chowdhury, former Rajya Sabha member of the TDP, into the party. Andhra Pradesh CLP leader P. Janardhana Reddy, who was in the capital the day Chowdhury's admission was announced, refused to be present at the routine 4 p.m. media briefing. His grouse: Chowdhury, a rabid Congress-hater, had hurled chappals at him during a municipal poll campaign. Also to be welcomed to the Congress was N. Dennis, one of the three Tamil Maanila Congress (TMC) members of the dissolved Lok Sabha. Dennis' admission could not but sour the Congress' relations with TMC chief G.K. Moopanar, who has all along been advocating that the Congress should shun the scam-tainted J. Jayalalitha and build new bridges with the DMK. And that was his condition for the TMC's merger with the Congress. Sonia received Moopanar at her home last week, but left him in no doubt as to her choice of Jayalalitha as a poll ally. cwc member Sharad Pawar, now the leading member of the party's unofficial "strategy group", flew off to Chennai to begin the seat-sharing negotiations with the AIADMK chief. Pawar's rating with his party chief soared as he was able to lure into the Congress the entire brass of the Maharashtra wing of Mulayam Singh Yadav's Samajwadi Party. The exodus was sizeable, ranging from the state president Hussein Dalwai to many office-bearers down the line, 68 out of about 110. In Bangalore, some prominent supporters of Commerce Minister Ramakrishna Hegde, led by R.V. Deshpande, crossed over to the Congress. Four of them were technically ruling Janata Dal MLAs who had desisted from joining Hegde's Lok Shakti to avoid disqualification. Their entry into the Congress was timed with the assembly elections. The poaching operations are consistent with Sonia's go-it-alone policy. If the Congress with its 400 candidates can win half the seats, that's enough bargaining strength for the party to form a government on its own. If the tally becomes substantially lower than 200, supporters may insist on a share of the power pie. As they did in April. Sonia's displeasure at missing the bus is evident. She is piqued at Mulayam, the man who prevented her from becoming India's first foreign-born prime minister. She got Arjun Singh to call Mulayam a "secular impostor" and herself read out a line that described, in quite a heroic style, the Samajwadi Party as "having found its destiny in the arms of the communal forces". The thorny issue of her waiting for 15 years after marriage to apply for Indian citizenship and renounce the Italian, may bedevil her next bid for power too. For it to go away, the Congress must not only finish first but carry a tail of supporters which is too short to wag the dog. -with Javed M. Ansari |
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When
it comes to the Nehru-Gandhi family, the Congress is a party of forgiveness. The majority
of the party clung to Indira Gandhi despite her post-Emergency shock, nor did the party
question Rajiv Gandhi for its 1989 poll defeat. So it would have been uncharacteristic of
the Congress to point fingers at its president, Sonia Gandhi, for having led it
blindfolded into an undesired mid-term poll. There was a bit of humming and hawing
initially but nobody thought of changing the driver midway. Sonia was the sole author of
April's Operation Topple. The election strategy too is being handed down to the party from
10 Janpath. 
