Inept leadership

THE WEST BENGAL imbroglio over the Trinamool Congress sponsored anti-Left `mahajot' (grand alliance) has exposed, yet again, the woeful failures and inadequacies of the Congress(I) high command - Ms. Sonia Gandhi to be specific - on two critical fronts. First, in setting before the party a clear ideological vision that is in keeping with the nation's secular and pluralist political ethos and, second, in steering the organisation towards that goal unwaveringly. When she stepped into the political arena, shedding the cloak of mystique, there was a great expectation that her connection with the Nehru family would work a miracle for the party which stood totally dispirited and alienated from its traditional constituencies. Barring some positive signs in the initial phase as seen notably in the November 1998 round of Assembly elections, the record of Ms. Gandhi at the helm has proved to be a very disappointing one, blotted as it is by a series of miscalculations, blunders and flipflops. Witness, for instance, her infamous ``we-have-272'' claim and her obdurate stand against power-sharing with prospective allies (after the downfall of the Vajpayee Government in 1999) and the party's equivocation over `coalition', not to mention its flipflops in Haryana and more recently in Bihar. All these and her widely perceived inability to deliver votes on a scale expected of one belonging to the `dynasty' have unsurprisingly meant considerable erosion of the high command's authority, as reflected in the widespread cross-voting in the recent Rajya Sabha biennial elections, with West Bengal providing the most brazen example.

In a wider perspective, the way the Congress(I) high command has responded to the opinions of its units in Bihar and West Bengal has brought out a sharp contradiction which, apart from sending confusing signals all round, called into question the party's commitment to secularism and, in an extended sense, inevitably led to a weakening of the anti-communalism platform. Less than a month ago, the central leadership had invoked its secular credentials to overrule the local party unit's strong reservations about extending support to the RJD Government; and this, notwithstanding the fact that such a partnership meant a retraction from its poll commitment and a compromise of sorts on its anti-corruption plank. But in West Bengal it has had little compunction in going along with a defiant PCC establishment's moves for a tieup with the Trinamool Congress within an umbrella grouping called `mahajot' that included the BJP. All the assertions by spokespersons that the party would have no truck with the BJP either ``directly or indirectly'' sounded hollow against Ms. Mamata Banerjee's authoritative rejection of any suggestion of her snapping ties with the BJP or walking out of the NDA.

All this is not to say that the Congress(I) should forsake its political interests in West Bengal or to refute its democratically legitimate right to bid for power by joining forces with others against the CPI(M)-led Left Front. The point is only that the ideological imperatives at the national level - in this case, fighting the majoritarian communalist forces represented by the BJP and other outfits in the sangh parivar that pose a big challenge to the country's secular and pluralist polity - should not be given the go-by in the name of striking opportunist ``strategic alliances'' for short-term gains. It is precisely here that the quality of leadership counts critically, all the more for a party like the Congress(I) which finds itself terribly emaciated both in the organisational and electoral senses. Going by the way Ms. Sonia Gandhi has steered the party through the stormy political currents so far, it must be said that she is yet to prove her mettle as a leader with vision who can rise above succumbing to the intrigue of an inner-party coterie and take independent decisions that would advance the party's interest.

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