POLITICS

Visions of power

At the All India Congress Committee's one-day special session in New Delhi, where it was Sonia Gandhi all the way, the general mood indicates that the party is positioning itself to make a bid for power at the Centre.

PURNIMA S. TRIPATHI
in New Delhi

BY all accounts, Congressmen have started dreaming of coming to power once again at the Centre on their own. At the one-day special session of the All India Congress Committee (AICC) held in New Delhi on May 24, it was clear that Congressmen have actually started visualising Sonia Gandhi as a Prime Minister in the not-so-distant future. There was euphoria in the air, mingled with a conscious optimism that soon the party would be in power - without any strings attached. By the time the session ended, the optimism had been transformed into a certain confidence, and most delegates were exuding confidence that Sonia would be the next Prime Minister.

RAJEEV BHATT
Congress(I) president Sonia Gandhi at the All India Congress Committee session in New Delhi on May 24.

Paeans in praise of the Congress(I) president came in abundant measure. She, on her part, declared that fulfilment of the task bequeathed on her would not be possible without the support of all - an expression of confidence in the supporters, which served as the brew to invigorate them further. Speaker after speaker made the point that the nation awaited Sonia Gandhi for deliverance from evil. It was the time for her to arise like Durga to slay the demon of communalism which was threatening to devour the country. It was sycophancy at its best, typical of the Congress(I) culture. Even veterans such as Vasant Sathe and Arjun Singh were bending over backwards to please the leader. "I wish to see her as Prime Minister before I die," declared Sathe, to the thunderous applause from the delegates. He even came up with a new slogan: "Desh ki amma kaisi hi, Sonia Gandhi jaisi ho" (How should the mother of a nation be? She should be like Sonia Gandhi). Arjun Singh, who moved the political resolution, went a step ahead to goad Sonia to rise and seize the opportunity of heading the government which destiny had presented her. "History is waiting for you. The nation awaits you. Take command of the army which was once led by Mahatma Gandhi, Nehruji, Indiraji and Rajivji," he said.

Other delegates, like this Jyoti from Bihar, declared Sonia an avtaar, or incarnation, of Durga. Satwant Kaur from Chhindwara in Madhya Pradesh described her as "a true deshbhakt (patriot) who dazzled everyone with her brilliance". Uttar Pradesh Congress Committee (UPCC) president Sri Prakash Jaiswal termed Sonia Gandhi the "country's future". To references such as these, the 1,000-odd delegates burst into applause.

Sonia Gandhi appeared unmoved by all the praise. She reacted enthusiastically only once, when a delegate from Punjab urged her to get rid of moneybag Congressmen and promote those who were closer to the people at the grassroots level. She was visibly happy at the suggestion and nodded vigorously.

The session saw Sonia Gandhi emerging stronger than ever before in the organisation. While the delegates tried hard to establish her as the Numero Uno, she, on her part, proved that she had arrived politically. Her speech was a double-edged sword, a well-calculated exercise. Although she supported the government in its fight against terrorism, she criticised it for failing on all fronts, including in the matter of tackling cross-border terrorism. The speech also outlined the role the Congress(I) visualised for itself. As a responsible Opposition party, it would support the government in times of national crisis, but at the same time it would take the government to task for its failures. "We are conscious of the grave security situation that prevails today in our region. However, while as a responsible political party we extend our hand of support at this critical hour, as a responsive political party we cannot overlook that this is also a government that has revealed monumental incompetence on many fronts," she said. According to her, the government is steeped in corruption, that of a rewarding sort. The government was also insensitive to the needs of the people. "This is a government that is marked by drift, propelled by inaction and sustained by nothing but greed for power," she said. This was the reason, Sonia Gandhi claimed, why the people were looking up to the Congress(I) to "lead the country from darkness to light". She said that once again the Congress(I) was being seen as the only "instrument to rescue the country from the abyss of political paralysis, economic stagnation and social turmoil".

In what can be described as the most scathing attack on the Vajpayee government by her so far, Sonia Gandhi took the government to task for it all-round failure. She said that though the Congress(I) has extended support to the government in its fight against terrorism so that the world could see India was one on the issue, the government was found lacking in initiative and effort. She said the government had so far not given any indication of a comprehensive strategy to deal with cross-border terrorism, and was instead indulging only in rhetoric. "The unprecedented mobilisation of the forces to forward areas since the last five months has also failed to stop infiltration from across the border," she said. The government had not only failed to improve the security situation in Jammu and Kashmir, but it had failed to take forward a credible political dialogue in the State. Adversaries had taken advantage of the government's lapse and, as a result, the situation had worsened.

IN Gujarat, Sonia Gandhi said, while the events in Godhra were condemnable, what followed and was still continuing was all the more condemnable. The events in Gujarat, she said, were an outcome of the hate politics preached by the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh-Bharatiya Janata Party-Vishwa Hindu Parishad combine and their non-acceptance of minorities as equal and honoured citizens of the country. She said that in Gujarat, as elsewhere, the message of the Congress(I) was of social peace and harmony, of religious amity and understanding. "We reject the politics of hate. We will go to the people with politics that unites, not divides, politics that heals, not wounds." She said the lesson from Gujarat was also about governance.

She told Congress(I) Chief Ministers that governance was fundamentally about maintaining law and order and ensuring security of life and property. She reminded them of the decision taken at the Guwahati conclave in April that anyone preaching or practising the politics of hate and threatening the existence of the secular fabric of society must be dealt with severely without fear or favour, according to the law. Defining secularism, she said that it was not "freedom from religion, but freedom of religion". It visualises no discrimination on the basis of religion and seeks to treat all religions with equal respect. According to her, this definition would help the party to counter the charge of pandering to minority communalism. Sonia Gandhi claimed that the Congress(I) had no intention of indulging in competitive communalism, but it would not stop mounting an aggressive campaign against communalism. "The Congress rejects the very notion of any religion being under threat or danger," she said.

On the economic front, Sonia Gandhi said, the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) government had failed to maintain the dynamism that had been given to it by the Congress(I) government previously. Instead of being able to take the economy forward, the NDA government was found to be swamped in scams. Under the NDA government, industrial growth has declined, an investment famine looms large, neglect of agriculture has pushed farmers below subsistence levels and employment growth has continued to decelerate. "Yet the government has shown no urgency to tackle these problems. Economic reforms in a framework of religious fanaticism and social bigotry is neither acceptable nor sustainable," she said.

Sonia Gandhi owned up the weaknesses the party faced in Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, West Bengal and Tamil Nadu. In Uttar Pradesh, she hoped, the party's development-oriented approach and non-sectarian politics would finally revive its fortunes. While in Bihar, the party would have to work to stand on its own feet, in Tamil Nadu she hoped that the alliance with Tamil Maanila Congress (TMC) would help it in the long run. She admitted that in West Bengal the party had not been successful so far in making any breakthrough. However, there was no indication of a broad outline of the party's strategy to forge alliances in order to check the communal forces. The party seems to think that it can counter communalism on its own and that it can get an adequate number of seats to form the next government at the Centre on its own.

THREE resolutions - a political one, an economic one and one dealing with foreign policy - were adopted at the session. The political resolution dwelt at length on the party's ideals of secularism, the Gujarat incidents, the situation in Jammu and Kashmir and the panchayati raj system. While it lamented the decline in the NDA government's performance at all levels, it reiterated the party's commitment to the welfare of the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes, women and other weaker sections of society and its resolve to promote the panchayati raj system.

The economic resolution attacked the government for frittering away the gains which the Congress(I) government had made during the 1991-96 period. It also reiterated its concern over the "mindless privatisation of public sector undertakings". The resolution said that privatisation of Central public sector undertakings could not be equated with privatisation of enterprises owned and operated by the State governments. Expressing concern over the "continued investment famine" in the country, it declared that the Congress(I) would revive the investment momentum, especially in manufacturing, and segments of social infrastructure such as education and health. It would strengthen the agriculture sector; make public enterprises stronger, especially in strategic areas, and pursue privatisation only where it was inevitable. It would launch food-for-work programmes and a national employment guarantee scheme; and ensure that the public distribution system (PDS) provided adequate food security to the poor.

The foreign policy resolution cautioned the government against "populist pronouncements" in view of the sensitive situation in Jammu and Kashmir, saying that it was "time for thoughtful and prudent action". It regretted that despite India's unconditional offer of support to the United States in its fight against terrorism in Afghanistan, there was very little to show by way of reciprocation as far as the situation in Jammu and Kashmir was concerned. However, it categorically opposed any interference in Jammu and Kashmir by other countries. "The Congress rejects any notion of other countries making prescriptive comments on our internal affairs," the resolution said.

The resolution wanted India to take a lead in rejuvenating the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) and in forging better relations with its neighbours such as Nepal, Bhutan, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka. It regretted the NDA government's tilt towards Israel, in contrast to the earlier stand of the country in support of Palestine. India should play its role in securing justice to the people of Palestine as it had done in the past, the resolution demanded.

The range of topics dealt with in the economic and foreign policy resolutions made them look like a blueprint for the policy framework of a government-in-waiting. The political resolution took the pride of place for its extensive treatment of the twin issues of secularism and communalism. It gave an indication of the party's strategy in the days to come. The party evidently plans to nail the NDA government on political issues more than anything else. The strategy assumes significance since elections are round the corner in several States in the next year. With 14 States already under its rule, the Congress(I) hopes to add more to its tally by means of linking the concept of secularism with good governance, in which the BJP is at present found to be failing. The Congress(I), brandishing the secular wand, has sought to hijack the "good governance" agenda from the BJP and to use it to its advantage to show the latter in a poor light.