The desperation of the Congress seems to be as intense as the anxieties of Gujarat's riot victims. For quite some time the party has been in search of a mobilising, life-enhancing cause. Apart from the demonised BJP, it has no other rallying cry. True, as the opposition party, it has to draw maximum oxygen from the ruling party. Rejuvenation requires more than that. Today the party thinks riot is the right diet. Since the Left-liberal political establishment has already stripped the riot off its social history and reduced it to the size of Chief Minister Narendra Modi's administrative apathy, the Congress' latest political agitation has little novelty. It's Modi again, and all those honourable chief ministers of the Congress, 14 of them, are set to court arrest in Gujarat for the sake of Gujarat-no, for the sake of the party. For, in the riot-born politics of Gujarat, the Congress is a loser, and the BJP, the party of the so-called provocateur, is the gainer, no matter how morally sustainable that gain is. It is this sense of political loss, not the plight of the dispossessed victims in rehabilitation camps, that powers the Congress' Gujarat agitation. Also, it looks like the party is aware of its own inability to exploit the Gujarat opportunity. This self awareness intensifies the desperation further.

The Congress predicament is unique. There is no shortage of situations. The BJP is on the verge of a mortal crisis. There is a restless constituency of "whatever happened to secularism?" And there is a growing sense of fear among the minorities. Ideally, the Congress should be the natural beneficiary. The stark reality is: it is not. Optimists may argue with the aid of statistics: big gains in assembly elections and in power in 14 states. Still, the regional gains don't add up to big national gain. This paradox magnifies an acute existential crisis of India's Grand Old Party. It makes its national leadership, that is, the leadership of Sonia Gandhi, almost redundant. People who matter are the Krishnas and Antonys. The regional leader is the one who makes a difference-and keeps the totemic national leader going. That way, Sonia is the luckiest as well as the most unfortunate leader in the (dynastic) history of the Congress. Unlike her family predecessors, she doesn't have to worry about slogans or leadership charisma. Leaders are in the countryside, the centre is empty, and the riot is unlikely to change it.