Delhi's power circles saw two anniversaries come and go last week. The fifth anniversary of Atal Bihari Vajpayee becoming the prime minister was celebrated with much colour, coming as it did on the eve of Holi. But four days earlier, Sonia Gandhi had completed five years as the Congress president. The event went largely unnoticed. It is not clear whether the low key nature of the occasion had something to do with Sonia's desire to keep such events private or whether it was a case of collective memory failure on the part of Congressmen.

GARIBI GAMBLE: Sonia plans to revise the party ideology

The subdued mood at 10 Janpath last week may well turn out to be the lull before the storm. On March 30, the Congress will be launching its own offensive to ensure that Vajpayee doesn't go on to break too many records-he is the first non-Congress prime minister to complete five years in office. The rally that Sonia is to address at the Ram Lila grounds, party leaders hope, will be just the tonic to end its seven-year jinx out of office.

The highlight of the Congress rally-which comes at the end of a two-day convention of block Congress committee presidents from across the country-will be giving the main opposition party a winning slogan to return to power in October 2004, if not earlier. Congress ke haath, garib ke saath (the hand of the Congress is with the poor) will be the party's new mantra and senior party leaders are hoping it will work the same magic for Sonia as the Garibi hatao slogan did for Indira Gandhi in the 1970s. Coupled with that will be a stinging attack on the Government for non-performance and corruption. The party leadership is said to be toying with the idea of preparing a corruption chargesheet against the Government that they hope to submit to President A.P.J. Abdul Kalam.

It is the new slogan that has got Congress leaders excited. It necessarily means that Sonia will be steering the party once again towards left of centre. The ideological confusion that has afflicted the party since the Congress government led by P.V. Narasimha Rao ushered in economic liberalisation is expected to be resolved once and for all. As a party MP and a votary of the free market puts it, "From being the B team of the BJP, we will now become the B team of the CPI(M)."

The latest party motto is less about a new ideological thrust and more about Sonia's flagging confidence in waging an all-out war to dislodge the NDA Government. Some party leaders are reluctant to equate the March 30 rally as a countdown to the next general elections to the Lok Sabha. "We are not looking at elections some 20 months away or even at the assembly elections that are due later this year. We are just looking within, at the party organisation," says Salman Khursheed of the Congress' Department for Policy, Programme and Coordination.

BACK AGAIN
R.K. DHAWAN The Arjun Singh-V. George camp thinks he can checkmate Ambika Soni.	BUTA SINGH He may make a comeback solely because there are very few Dalit leaders.
OUT FOR NOW
MURLI DEORA The ouster of the Mumbai party chief is a prelude to large-scale changes.	AMBIKA SONI Sonia's political secretary has ruffled far too many feathers in the party.

The reason for the flurry of activity in the party is its comprehensive victory in the February elections in Himachal Pradesh and a desire to keep up the tempo to rejuvenate the organisation. On March 8, Sonia convened a meeting of Pradesh Congress Committee presidents. The demand for a winning slogan was voiced at this meeting. It was again at this meeting that Sonia expressed a desire to directly interact with grassroots workers. Thus, March 29-30 will see the first-ever meeting of the 8,000-odd-though party leaders admit many could not be contacted for the lack of proper addresses-Congress block committee presidents who form the first rung in the four-tier party bureaucracy. "The AICC and PCC delegates are being kept out of this national convention. Even MPs and MLAs need special entry passes," says AICC General Secretary K. Vayalar Ravi. The convention, organised like a mini-AICC session will discuss four subject papers-agriculture, women empowerment, youth and unemployment.

While the catchy new slogan is expected to settle the ideological battle within the party, what is engaging the attention of Congress leaders is the organisational reshuffle that Sonia hinted at recently. She took the first step when she asked Murli Deora, president of the Mumbai Regional Congress Committee for more than two decades, to put in his papers. This even after he displayed his loyalty by flying in a planeload of Maharashtra Congress leaders to Delhi to congratulate Sonia for the party's win in Himachal Pradesh. "We have to revive the Mumbai unit to find our feet in Konkan. Deora preferred to organise only closed-door meetings instead of rallies for Sonia in Mumbai," points out Ravi.

The removal of the well-entrenched Deora has now fuelled hopes of a drastic overhaul at the AICC level- with those outside wanting to get in and those inside hoping desperately to cling on. With Sonia looking left ward, Arjun Singh has a secure place in her scheme of things. If Arjun is in, Sonia's private secretary Vincent George will have to be somewhere around. The Arjun-George axis hopes to reinduct R.K. Dhawan and aims to cut to size Sonia's political secretary Ambika Soni. The other favourites of the axis are oldtimers Ghulam Nabi Azad, Buta Singh-in place of Soni acolyte Mukul Wasnik -and Margaret Alva. The Arjun camp is also expected to target Kamal Nath, AICC treasurer Motilal Vora and Ravi for not accommodating leaders of the erstwhile Congress (Tiwari)-Arjun's breakaway group of the Narasimha Rao era-in the three states under his charge.

The incumbents hope to counter the reshuffle by digging in their heels. They insist the reshuffle will be limited to the secretary level. "Sonia wants a slim, effective team," says one of them. After the win in Himachal and a respectable tally in several by-elections, the present team sees no reason why they should be penalised. They foresee some shuffling of chairs and a few changes in assignments. "Vora has proved to be a good treasurer. He may be, at most, relieved of his state charge," says an optimistic office-bearer.

Soni may not be so lucky. As Sonia's political secretary, she wields enormous clout and, therefore, has been the target of senior leaders' ire. There are three election-going states in her charge and Soni is said to have expressed her willingness to let go of them. She feels so shaky that she is trying to building bridges with George-allies like Ghulam Nabi Azad to counter the Arjun Singh camp.

With the turf war warming up, party circles are sceptical of a drastic overhaul. "There is a system of lobbying that it is very difficult to bypass. Those who are in will use every trick in the book to ensure that they continue," says a senior leader. Besides the "talent" that is available to Sonia is very limited. Leaders of some standing in the states loathe to come in for a stint at the AICC which they equate to being civil servants at the party headquarters. This narrowing down of choice leaves the fray open exclusively to those living in and around Delhi.

Given the circumstances, Sonia will have to be ingenious and imaginative, persuasive and dogged if she is to put a new team in place to assist her in leading the party to the polls next year. If she can't do that, catchy slogans and mass rallies may end up making no difference.