Sonia Gandhi and the Congress(I)

By Sudhanshu Ranade

THE KNIVES are out again in the Congress(I). Mrs. Sonia Gandhi is once more being targeted. There has been a steady trickle of Congressmen away from the party over the years, and there are signs of unease among those who remain - about the quality of her leadership and whether the party is safe in her hands.

Still, the fact of the matter is that, fighting almost single- handed in 1999, Mrs. Sonia Gandhi was able to get eight million more votes for the Congress(I) than it got in 1998. Strictly speaking, it is too much to give her all the credit. The Congress(I) still has a solid phalanx of second-rung leaders. Mr. Salman Khursheed, who engineered the Congress(I) comeback in Uttar Pradesh in 1999, is specially worth mention. There are many others doing their bit to market the Congress(I). Still, there is no doubt that their task was made a great deal easier by the fact that Mrs. Sonia Gandhi was at the helm. In this respect, Congressmen have not been misled by their instincts.

What makes Mrs. Sonia Gandhi's performance in the general elections of 1999 all the more creditable is that she was able to accomplish what she did even though the BJP, and people such as Mr. Sharad Pawar, had gone hammer and tongs at her, personally, on the question of her `foreign origin'. But Congress(I) got eight million more votes; while BJP votes dropped by seven and a half million. The share of the Congress in votes polled climbed from 25.8 per cent in 1998 to 28.3 per cent in 1999; while the BJP share fell from 25.6 per cent to 23.7 per cent.

As the results of the 1999 elections began coming in, the inclination was not to attach much importance to this evidence. For more than a decade, the Congress(I) had been on a path of decline. The party, it appeared, no longer stood for anything; no longer represented anyone; it was no longer an appealing brand. In consequence, the most it was capable of was to manage a thin- spread increase of votes, which would be of little help in bringing it back to power. But now that the Election Commission has released the detailed reports of the 1999 general elections, matters appear different. It was held that the drop in the BJP's vote share was due to the party's conscious decision not to contest a large number of constituencies, which it anyway had no chance of winning. The data tell a different story altogether.

In Karnataka, the Congress(I) simply swept the polls; winning 18 out of the 28 Lok Sabha seats. It also swept the Assembly elections, and is now firmly in control of the Government of Karnataka; having earlier, before the Lok Sabha elections, delivered the BJP a stunning blow by walking away with the three BJP `strongholds' of Delhi, Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh.

Congress(I) votes dropped in Maharashtra, because Mr. Pawar split. But, while the NCP polled seven million votes in the Lok Sabha elections in Maharashtra, the Congress(I) lost only four million voters. When Mr. Pawar left the Congress(I), Mr. Bal Thackeray had tauntingly `welcomed him back to State politics'; and now, it transpired, from the results of the Maharashtra Assembly elections, that even this goal was beyond his reach. Since Mr. Pawar was also unable to cash in on the growing uneasiness in the BJP about its alliance with the Shiv Sena in Maharasthra, he ended up throwing in his lot with the very party that he had just the other day broken away from; to form the Government in Maharashtra, as a junior partner.

In Gujarat, which Hindu radicals imagine to be their bastion, total votes polled by all parties together actually fell by almost three million between 1998 and 1999, as turnout plummeted from 59.5 to 47 per cent. Clearly the people of Gujarat are less than enthusiastic about the crude sort of hindutva running amok in their State. Votes polled by the BJP fell from 7.8 million in 1998 to 7.1 million in 1999; but the Congress(I) inched its way up from 5.9 million to 6.2 million votes, despite the drop in the total number of votes polled.

In Uttar Pradesh, the Congress(I) took in 4.6 million more votes in 1999, even as votes in favour of the BJP plummeted by 5.4 million. Only about one million votes were lost by the BJP on account of understandings with its allies; how does one explain the loss of the remaining four and a half million votes, in a State that the BJP once believed to be its stronghold?

Since the Congress(I) had been almost completely wiped out from Uttar Pradesh earlier (it got only 6 per cent of the votes polled in 1998), even the large increment of votes in 1999 was able to pull it up only to an apparently hopeless 14.7 per cent. But, thanks to the fact that these votes were a positive mandate for change, rather than the outcome of vague sentiment, as many as 2.6 million of the 4.6 million additional votes that the Congress(I) raked in were concentrated in just 19 `winnable' constituencies (of the total 85). Because of this, the party was not only able to bag as many as ten Lok Sabha seats (it got none in 1998), but also found itself within striking distance of another nine seats. A similar picture emerges when one splits up the votes for the 1999 Lok Sabha elections in Uttar Pradesh according to their Assembly constituencies. The Congress `won' as many as 40 such seats, and came within striking distance of another 22. Not bad for a party which was able to win only five Assembly seat in 1996.

In short, there can be no doubt that Mrs. Sonia Gandhi is good for the Congress(I). Her record as a vote-catcher is very impressive indeed. This is obviously her strong point; and both the party and she herself should make the best use of it; perhaps specially by trying to reach out to women over the next two to three years. This is a constituency that is just waiting for someone to tap it; and it could enable the Congress(I) to get at votes which traditional party loyalties would otherwise place beyond its reach.

In respect of `organisational' matters, however, Mrs. Sonia Gandhi has been doing none too well. Mr. Mulayam Singh Yadav was quite unnecessarily rubbed the wrong way in the run-up to the 1999 elections. Mr. Pawar could have been handled more tactfully. The handling of Bihar has been slipshod. The failure to reach out proactively to Ms. Mamata Banerjee to ensure her victory in West Bengal in the coming elections was unfortunate. Mrs. Sonia Gandhi's handling of what is left of the Congress(I) too leaves a lot to be desired. The way she has being going about it has not allowed a fair hearing for the best ideas; and, in addition, it has made the atmosphere in the party somewhat suffocating for her best people.

Slippages in such matters are costly not only for the Congress(I) but for Mrs. Sonia Gandhi as well. There is only so much that can be done on the basis of personal charisma. Without attending to strategic and organisational issues, there is a limit to what can be achieved. This came out all too clearly in the results of the 1999 Lok Sabha polls in Andhra Pradesh. Votes polled by the Congress shot up from 12.2 million in 1998 to an impressive 14.3 million. The party got 43 per cent of the votes polled; the second largest party, the TDP, could not even cross 40 per cent. But, forced by its fear of the Congress(I) at the State level into an `alliance' with the BJP at the national level, the TDP walked off with 29 of the 42 Lok Sabha seats. The Congress(I) got just 5. It does not make sense to team up with parties anyway on their way down; or with those who have no momentum except what they derive from you. But these are the only people that Mrs. Sonia Gandhi feels really comfortable with. Others she sees as a threat.

A change of advisors will not help; for best results, Mrs. Sonia Gandhi needs to relinquish control. She ought not to trust her instincts in `policy' matters. Direct appeals to the people are what she is good at. This is what she should stick to; leaving strategic and organisational matters to be handled by others who are better fitted to do so. They need her as badly as she needs them, and she can therefore safely leave them to get on with their jobs, without her insisting that all decisions be hers.

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