A realistic line

THE NEW LINE adopted by the Congress(I) at the Bangalore plenary in favour of forging a nationwide coalition against the BJP-led NDA is, indeed, a reflection of a realisation among its leaders of the ground realities. With the party being reduced to a pale shadow of what it was in such States as Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, West Bengal and Tamil Nadu, Ms. Sonia Gandhi and her party will find it impossible to sell the idea of a Congress(I) comeback on its own at the national level to the ranks leave alone to the people as a whole. And after having agreed to join a coalition in the States even with outfits against which the Congress(I) had fought electoral battles - with the RJD in Bihar and the NCP in Maharashtra - in the recent past, the change at the national level was only to be expected. The Congress(I) plenary could not but have learnt a lesson from the April 1999 experience when the party's opposition to the idea of a coalition in the aftermath of the fall of the Atal Behari Vajpayee Government was among the factors that led to the September 1999 general election. It may be true that there were several imponderables at that stage, the most important one being the hostility of Mr. Mulayam Singh Yadav's Samajwadi Party.

The imponderables persist even now. As for instance, the Congress(I) cannot wish away the reality in Uttar Pradesh; the party's prospects have not improved in any big way in the State and in addition to this, the predominant position Mr. Mulayam Singh Yadav holds in the State needs to be reckoned with. The situation is similar (or even worse) in other States; in Bihar for instance, the Congress(I) has no other choice but to play second fiddle to Mr. Laloo Yadav and in Tamil Nadu the party was left to depend on Mr. G. K. Moopanar to manage a fair deal in the alliance with the AIADMK. And add to these the complexities of the party's problems in West Bengal. The Congress(I) had lost most of its organisation as well as mass support to Ms. Mamata Banerjee. And if the party intends remaining in the reckoning in the State, it will have to be seen refusing to do any business with the Left parties. Similarly, in Maharashtra, even if it is true that the Congress(I) had agreed to a tie-up with Mr. Sharad Pawar's outfit (in order to keep the BJP-Shiv Sena combine out of power), they cannot work together at the national level given the history of the problems between Mr. Sharad Pawar and Ms. Sonia Gandhi. The Congress(I) and Ms. Sonia Gandhi will have to come to terms with these issues in the event of putting the new line adopted at the Bangalore plenary into effect.

Be that as it may, the timing of the Congress(I) adopting its new line cannot but be seen in the context of the crisis that has caught the NDA at this stage. The Congress(I)'s eagerness to forge an alternative to the ruling coalition, taking into its fold sections from within the NDA, is palpable in the tone and tenor adopted by its leaders at the Bangalore meet. While it remains to be seen as to whether those in the ruling combine will follow the Trinamool Congress and walk out of the front, the Congress(I) will serve its own interests better if only it resists the temptation of working for a realignment of forces from within the context of the present Lok Sabha. Apart from the fact that such attempts could expose the party to the charge of opportunism, such a coalition will also remain an unstable one from its very inception. It is in this context that the party should work in real earnest to put together a combination based on a common programme even while holding on to the idea of a Congress(I)-led coalition in place.

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