On October 26, Congress President Sonia Gandhi took a leaf out of the BJP's book. For long, the Congress' concept of a coalition meant a more-than-equal role for the party. Now Sonia has not only accepted the idea of rotational chief ministership as perfected by the BJP in Uttar Pradesh, she has also announced that Mufti Mohammed Sayeed of the People's Democratic Party would head the coalition government for the first three years in Jammu and Kashmir.

In one stroke, Sonia frittered away the electoral gains of the party in the state, the first in many years. If she had to take such a decision in "the larger national interest", wouldn't it have been better to have made it in the first few days of the historic elections? At least the party would not have appeared so frustrated.

GIVING WAY: (From left) JKPCC chief Ghulam Nabi Azad, Sonia and the Mufti

There is this worry in Congress circles: Sonia's Jammu and Kashmir model could herald new crises in Congress-led coalition governments in Maharashtra and Kerala. What if the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) in Maharashtra and United Front constituents in Kerala demand a stint in the chief minister's office? "Would Sharad Pawar be acceptable to the Congress leadership since he may be best suited to manage Maharashtra's affairs? The Kashmir pattern has raised more questions about the party's coalition policy than it answers," says a Congress MP.

Senior Congress leaders wished away these questions by suggesting that the Kashmir decision was made in an extraordinary situation. "The decision speaks of Sonia's visionary approach to the Kashmir situation," insists Congress Working Committee member Arjun Singh, who was instrumental in persuading the party president to back Mufti. AICC General Secretary Kamal Nath endorses: "The Kashmir decision has not changed our approach to coalition politics. Sonia only revealed her vision for the state."

It is true that this is not the first time the party is taking a secondary role in the state. After the signing of the 1975 Indira Gandhi-Sheikh Abdullah accord, Chief Minister Mir Qasim resigned to make way for the Sheikh. The National Conference did not have a single MLA then and the Congress vacated the Ganderbal seat for the Sheikh. For 11 years, the party followed a similar pattern in Mizoram after the Rajiv-Laldenga accord. Sonia is only keeping up the family tradition, argue some senior leaders.

The Congress it seems has finally overcome its coalition phobia. The Samajwadi Party (SP), which is working overtime to wreck the Mayawati Government in Uttar Pradesh, is hoping to benefit from the Sonia doctrine. That is why soon after Sonia announced her decision, sp leader Amar Singh met Arjun Singh, who is seen as the father of the Kashmir model.

UTTAR PRADESH HALT: Sonia at Varanasi's Kashi Vishwanath Temple. Mulayam is lobbying for a tie-up, but Sonia is not forthcoming.

The big question is: will the new doctrine allow the party to form pre-electoral alliances at the national level and in states where it is weak? According to former Uttar Pradesh Congress Committee president Salman Khursheed, the Congress "might take a secondary position in the government, but we won't play a secondary role in governance". "We are not looking forward to repeating an NDA experiment at the Centre. We are confident of getting a majority on our own," he declares.

Which is why party workers insist that Congress should play solo to regain its supremacy in big states like Uttar Pradesh. And during her recent tour of the state, Sonia reiterated her party's commitment to the Pachmarhi Declaration as far as Uttar Pradesh is concerned. The party's coalition policy is guided by the Pachmarhi Declaration and the Bangalore aicc session resolution. At the 1998 brainstorming session at Pachmarhi, the party committed itself to restoring its primacy in national affairs and decided it would accede to coalitions only if it did not weaken the party. The AICC resolution, three years later, allowed the Congress to enter coalition governments only in the secular cause.

Still, even the Bangalore resolution will not be able to justify a tie-up with the SP in Lucknow. Despite party President Mulayam Singh Yadav's admission that Sonia's citizenship question has been settled by the Supreme Court, Congressmen-and its leader-can't forget Mulayam's anti-Sonia remarks.

So, is the Kashmir model a qualitative shift or an inevitable surrender? Take this from NCP leader P.A. Sangma: "The truth is, Mufti had left the Congress with very little choice."

Personally for Sonia, Kashmir was a display of leadership. It rid her of the image of being power-hungry that she acquired when the Vajpayee Government was voted out by a single vote in 1999. The inheritor of a party that knows the price of absolute power, Sonia has now inaugurated a doctrine in which the power of the Congress is relative.

THE SRINAGAR COUP
Man in Mufti

HIGH & DRY: Supporters at a rally addressed by Congress' chief ministerial candidate Azad

It is a short time in history but a long stretch in the life of a politician. For that moment on Saturday (November 2), the day of his swearing in as the seventh chief minister of Jammu and Kashmir, Mufti Mohammed Sayeed had waited for 25 years, seven months and seven days.

In March 1977, five days after the Congress was routed in the Lok Sabha elections, as PCC president Mufti was instrumental in withdrawing support to the Sheikh Abdullah government and staked claim to form a Congress ministry. But with the change of guard in Delhi, the then governor L.K. Jha declined to oblige and imposed governor's rule.

Mufti took no chances this time. For a fortnight after the elections, he waged a war of nerves with the Congress high command. Refusing to yield the chief ministership to a claimant from Jammu, he held three massive rallies-in Ganderbal, Badgam and Anantnag-to showcase his mandate in the Valley. The rallies briefly cast the Congress as a power-hungry party that was insensitive to Kashmiri sentiment. He supplemented his intransigence with polite parleys with old influential friends in the Congress such as Arjun Singh and exploited their distrust in PCC President Ghulam Nabi Azad's ability to govern the state.

What however clinched the top job for Mufti was neither his tough talk nor the intra-Congress intrigues. The Congress, which believed it had a lead in the numbers game, was forced to blink when it could not buy the MLAs of Mufti's People's Democratic Party (PDP). The 16 PDP members, who won because of the support of the Hizb-ul-Mujahideen and Jamaat-e-Islami, refused to cross over as they feared reprisals from the militant groups.

Nonetheless, the Congress did not yield to Mufti until it had forged an agenda for governance. It treated the three-year rotational chief ministership, deputy chief ministership, key portfolios and the coordination committee as minor matters compared to the 31-point common minimum programme (CMP). Mufti had to make a lot of effort to convince the Congress that he would not compromise on national interests. In a written submission to Manmohan Singh, Mufti assured him that his soft approach on tackling militancy was only a poll plank. He was, however, firm on disbanding the dreaded counter-militancy Special Operations Group (SOG).

Since the Congress did not have much of a poll plank, it did not see any harm in making the CMP people friendly. The disbanding of the SOG, however, is worrying the security forces. "Deactivation of SOG will make a difference because it was the source of information for the armed forces." says Lt-General V.G. Patankar, corps commander, 15 Corps. But Supreme Court lawyer Ashok Bhan, who assisted Mufti in his talks with the Congress, disagrees. "After all, even the Election Commission had sent the SOG to the barracks during the polls," he points out. The CMP's soft approach to militants is not worrying Delhi either. "The CMP is addressing Kashmiris not Pakistan or the world. It has to offer hope, peace and governance," points out a PMO official.

Mufti is aware that the CMP has raised public expectations. "People should realise we don't have a magic wand to fulfil all wishes overnight," he warns. The CMP has hijacked the agenda of both the Centre and the separatists. Little surprise then that a top Hurriyat Conference leader lobbied hard with the Congress till the last day to scuttle Mufti's prospects.

- Lakshmi Iyer with Izhar Ahmed Wani

On October 26, Congress President Sonia Gandhi took a leaf out of the BJP's book. For long, the Congress' concept of a coalition meant a more-than-equal role for the party. Now Sonia has not only accepted the idea of rotational chief ministership as perfected by the BJP in Uttar Pradesh, she has also announced that Mufti Mohammed Sayeed of the People's Democratic Party would head the coalition government for the first three years in Jammu and Kashmir.

In one stroke, Sonia frittered away the electoral gains of the party in the state, the first in many years. If she had to take such a decision in "the larger national interest", wouldn't it have been better to have made it in the first few days of the historic elections? At least the party would not have appeared so frustrated.

GIVING WAY: (From left) JKPCC chief Ghulam Nabi Azad, Sonia and the Mufti

There is this worry in Congress circles: Sonia's Jammu and Kashmir model could herald new crises in Congress-led coalition governments in Maharashtra and Kerala. What if the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) in Maharashtra and United Front constituents in Kerala demand a stint in the chief minister's office? "Would Sharad Pawar be acceptable to the Congress leadership since he may be best suited to manage Maharashtra's affairs? The Kashmir pattern has raised more questions about the party's coalition policy than it answers," says a Congress MP.

Senior Congress leaders wished away these questions by suggesting that the Kashmir decision was made in an extraordinary situation. "The decision speaks of Sonia's visionary approach to the Kashmir situation," insists Congress Working Committee member Arjun Singh, who was instrumental in persuading the party president to back Mufti. AICC General Secretary Kamal Nath endorses: "The Kashmir decision has not changed our approach to coalition politics. Sonia only revealed her vision for the state."

It is true that this is not the first time the party is taking a secondary role in the state. After the signing of the 1975 Indira Gandhi-Sheikh Abdullah accord, Chief Minister Mir Qasim resigned to make way for the Sheikh. The National Conference did not have a single MLA then and the Congress vacated the Ganderbal seat for the Sheikh. For 11 years, the party followed a similar pattern in Mizoram after the Rajiv-Laldenga accord. Sonia is only keeping up the family tradition, argue some senior leaders.

The Congress it seems has finally overcome its coalition phobia. The Samajwadi Party (SP), which is working overtime to wreck the Mayawati Government in Uttar Pradesh, is hoping to benefit from the Sonia doctrine. That is why soon after Sonia announced her decision, sp leader Amar Singh met Arjun Singh, who is seen as the father of the Kashmir model.

UTTAR PRADESH HALT: Sonia at Varanasi's Kashi Vishwanath Temple. Mulayam is lobbying for a tie-up, but Sonia is not forthcoming.

The big question is: will the new doctrine allow the party to form pre-electoral alliances at the national level and in states where it is weak? According to former Uttar Pradesh Congress Committee president Salman Khursheed, the Congress "might take a secondary position in the government, but we won't play a secondary role in governance". "We are not looking forward to repeating an NDA experiment at the Centre. We are confident of getting a majority on our own," he declares.

Which is why party workers insist that Congress should play solo to regain its supremacy in big states like Uttar Pradesh. And during her recent tour of the state, Sonia reiterated her party's commitment to the Pachmarhi Declaration as far as Uttar Pradesh is concerned. The party's coalition policy is guided by the Pachmarhi Declaration and the Bangalore aicc session resolution. At the 1998 brainstorming session at Pachmarhi, the party committed itself to restoring its primacy in national affairs and decided it would accede to coalitions only if it did not weaken the party. The AICC resolution, three years later, allowed the Congress to enter coalition governments only in the secular cause.

Still, even the Bangalore resolution will not be able to justify a tie-up with the SP in Lucknow. Despite party President Mulayam Singh Yadav's admission that Sonia's citizenship question has been settled by the Supreme Court, Congressmen-and its leader-can't forget Mulayam's anti-Sonia remarks.

So, is the Kashmir model a qualitative shift or an inevitable surrender? Take this from NCP leader P.A. Sangma: "The truth is, Mufti had left the Congress with very little choice."

Personally for Sonia, Kashmir was a display of leadership. It rid her of the image of being power-hungry that she acquired when the Vajpayee Government was voted out by a single vote in 1999. The inheritor of a party that knows the price of absolute power, Sonia has now inaugurated a doctrine in which the power of the Congress is relative.

THE SRINAGAR COUP
Man in Mufti

HIGH & DRY: Supporters at a rally addressed by Congress' chief ministerial candidate Azad

It is a short time in history but a long stretch in the life of a politician. For that moment on Saturday (November 2), the day of his swearing in as the seventh chief minister of Jammu and Kashmir, Mufti Mohammed Sayeed had waited for 25 years, seven months and seven days.

In March 1977, five days after the Congress was routed in the Lok Sabha elections, as PCC president Mufti was instrumental in withdrawing support to the Sheikh Abdullah government and staked claim to form a Congress ministry. But with the change of guard in Delhi, the then governor L.K. Jha declined to oblige and imposed governor's rule.

Mufti took no chances this time. For a fortnight after the elections, he waged a war of nerves with the Congress high command. Refusing to yield the chief ministership to a claimant from Jammu, he held three massive rallies-in Ganderbal, Badgam and Anantnag-to showcase his mandate in the Valley. The rallies briefly cast the Congress as a power-hungry party that was insensitive to Kashmiri sentiment. He supplemented his intransigence with polite parleys with old influential friends in the Congress such as Arjun Singh and exploited their distrust in PCC President Ghulam Nabi Azad's ability to govern the state.

What however clinched the top job for Mufti was neither his tough talk nor the intra-Congress intrigues. The Congress, which believed it had a lead in the numbers game, was forced to blink when it could not buy the MLAs of Mufti's People's Democratic Party (PDP). The 16 PDP members, who won because of the support of the Hizb-ul-Mujahideen and Jamaat-e-Islami, refused to cross over as they feared reprisals from the militant groups.

Nonetheless, the Congress did not yield to Mufti until it had forged an agenda for governance. It treated the three-year rotational chief ministership, deputy chief ministership, key portfolios and the coordination committee as minor matters compared to the 31-point common minimum programme (CMP). Mufti had to make a lot of effort to convince the Congress that he would not compromise on national interests. In a written submission to Manmohan Singh, Mufti assured him that his soft approach on tackling militancy was only a poll plank. He was, however, firm on disbanding the dreaded counter-militancy Special Operations Group (SOG).

Since the Congress did not have much of a poll plank, it did not see any harm in making the CMP people friendly. The disbanding of the SOG, however, is worrying the security forces. "Deactivation of SOG will make a difference because it was the source of information for the armed forces." says Lt-General V.G. Patankar, corps commander, 15 Corps. But Supreme Court lawyer Ashok Bhan, who assisted Mufti in his talks with the Congress, disagrees. "After all, even the Election Commission had sent the SOG to the barracks during the polls," he points out. The CMP's soft approach to militants is not worrying Delhi either. "The CMP is addressing Kashmiris not Pakistan or the world. It has to offer hope, peace and governance," points out a PMO official.

Mufti is aware that the CMP has raised public expectations. "People should realise we don't have a magic wand to fulfil all wishes overnight," he warns. The CMP has hijacked the agenda of both the Centre and the separatists. Little surprise then that a top Hurriyat Conference leader lobbied hard with the Congress till the last day to scuttle Mufti's prospects.

- Lakshmi Iyer with Izhar Ahmed Wani