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| April 10, 2000 | ||
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| CONGRESS Sonia Slips Again The loss of Sonia's handpicked nominees in the Rajya Sabha elections has dissidents pleased as punch. And itching for the next round. By Lakshmi Iyer with Avirook Sen
Mitra's equivocation had started earlier in the day. He was constantly on the phone to Congress MLAs that morning. And after more than two dozen phone calls, he made one to the Trinamool-backed Independent candidate Jayanto Bhattacharya. Bhattacharya was a one-time Mitra groupie, and that seemed to count. "Don't worry," Mitra told him, "we are winning." Of course, he didn't mean the Congress.
The state unit had suggested Mitra's name -- unanimously. But party President Sonia Gandhi had chosen to nominate Debaprasad Roy. Now the lady would suffer the result of ignoring local sentiment. West Bengal PCC chief A.B.A. Ghani Khan Choudhary said the central leadership had "messed up". The victory of Kanpur businessman M.M. Agarwal in Uttar Pradesh was a replica of the Bengal story. Even in Karnataka and Rajasthan, where the Congress is in a comfortable majority in the Assembly, MLAs did not hesitate to cross vote: seven from the southern state and two from the northern one. In Orissa, where the party has 26 MLAs, the Opposition-backed Independent candidate Radhakant Nayak polled just 21 first-preference votes. In Uttar Pradesh, Sonia's handpicked Inder Khosla got hammered out of contention with only 14 votes in the first round. The Rajya Sabha election was merely a milestone in Sonia's stewardship of her party; the rocky road is far from over. In their relentless, even ruthless, quest to regain power, Congressmen have finally cast Sonia in the crucible. There's an immediate problem in Delhi. Elections to legislative committees have come in handy for rebels to push for the replacement of Chief Minister Shiela Dixit. Dissidence proved so difficult that Sonia had to put Madhavrao Scindia in charge of the state unit though he was no longer an AICC general secretary. In Uttar Pradesh, state unit chief Salman Khurshid faces the heat because senior leader Jitendra Prasada has been sidelined. Fellow Sonia loyalists Priyaranjan Das Munshi in West Bengal and Ashok Gehlot in Rajasthan are also being pushed to the backfoot. The Rajya Sabha debacle per se may have no implications for Sonia's leadership. As a Congress Working Committee member put it, "She survived the Lok Sabha defeat. She has had no problems even after the party's unedifying performance in the assembly elections in February. She is certain to survive this too." Undeniably though, the shadow-boxing season is in full swing. Barring former Gujarat chief minister Chhabildas Mehta, who in a letter asked Sonia to opt out of the race for prime minister, the closest the dissidents have got to challenging 10 Janpath is to attack "Madam's coterie", which now consists of Arjun Singh and Vincent George. Such challenges have not been decisive but they have created an impression that Sonia is being hemmed in. For instance, on the eve of the Rajya Sabha elections, Kapil Sibal, the rather persuasive MP, mounted a veiled attack on the coterie. He called for a debate on the party's dwindling fortunes. When both Arjun and Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Digvijay Singh urged partymen "not to blame Sonia or air views in public", Sibal did retreat. His friends in the party helpfully recalled the robust defence he had made of Sonia's leadership in a recent tv programme. Nevertheless Sibal's "call" touched many a raw nerve. Sonia's troubles do not end with punitive action against former minister Matang Singh or possible punitive action against Sibal or Mehta. One cause for discontent is the organisational election mandated by the Election Commission and due in June-July 2000. Sonia is keen on a secret ballot for every post from block level onwards. This is an idea most party leaders are not comfortable with. A section is inclined to pay Sonia back in her own coin, trying to cajole Rajesh Pilot to throw his hat into the ring. In 1997 too, Pilot contested against then party president Sitaram Kesri. The second cause for resentment against Sonia is her perceived unacceptability as a prime ministerial candidate. In this regard, the new unity of four former prime ministers has created possibilities for any post-Sonia Congress. Internal contradictions came to the fore when party leaders variously interpreted Sonia's meeting with US President Bill Clinton. For days they "debated" what she said in her eight-minute presentation. Did she dwell on India's contemporary need for a minimum nuclear deterrent or did she link the signing of CTBT to Rajiv's global disarmament plan? This may seem a semantic idiosyncrasy but in an organisation that values dynasty, MPs like Mani Shankar Aiyar and Sibal ensure public policies too have to be a legacy. The debate reduced Sonia to a caricature and the party to an appendage. On March 22, Pranab Mukherjee told the press Sonia had stressed the country's need for a minimum credible nuclear deterrent as well as linked signing of CTBT to Rajiv's disarmament plan. Since Clinton had strongly disapproved of India possessing such weapon systems, Sonia could not have afforded to be on the same side as the US. All the same, she succumbed to the so-called peaceniks in the party. Five days later, Ajit Jogi contradicted Mukherjee. Sonia had said nothing about the deterrent, Jogi claimed. "It is an assertion that the Congress is in a freeze frame," rued a party leader. "We're not allowed to think beyond benchmarks set by Nehru, Indira and Rajiv. Does that mean if we come to power we will dismantle our nuclear programme?" This controversy has so paralysed the Congress that "India's natural party of governance" has not come out with a coherent assessment of the joint India-US vision statement even a week after it was issued. Perhaps Sonia's party is too busy trying to come to terms with its Rajya Sabha blunders. |
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 © Living Media India Ltd |
On
March 29, longtime Bengal Congress stalwart Somen Mitra -- and now
Congressman keen to settle scores with the high command -- wasn't in the
mood for plainspeak. It was voting day for five Rajya Sabha seats from his
state. MLAs queued up in the Assembly for a supposedly "secret
ballot". Mitra cast his vote and made his way to meet Abdul Mannan,
the Congress' chief whip. "Congress is winning," he said,
"a few votes may go here or there." After the votes were
counted, Mannan may well have been wondering whether Mitra had meant
Trinamool Congress. With just three legislators in the House, Mamata
Banerjee's party came away with a Rajya Sabha seat. The Congress, with 69
MLAs, lost -- the result of cross-voting by 33 members.