The Hindu : An ironic reversal of roles

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Monday, Apr 01, 2002

Opinion

Opinion - News Analysis

An ironic reversal of roles

By K.K. Katyal

There could not have been two better friends, working to each other's great political advantage than the Prime Minister, A.B. Vajpayee, and the Leader of Opposition, Sonia Gandhi.

Nonsense, you may say. Have they not been severely indicting each other in the election campaigns and on other occasions in public?

Have they not been unsparing in their criticism of each other in Parliament? Has not the Congress(I) treated the BJP as its main foe and spearheaded the moves for floor coordination among the Opposition parties to make the maximum use of the rules of procedure to embarrass the Government?

Was not the Congress(I) at the forefront in the campaign against the POTO, because of which the Government had to resort to the unusual step of calling the joint sitting of Parliament?

True. But think of the consequences of their conduct and activities — of Mrs. Gandhi in 1997 and in 1999 and Mr. Vajpayee recently — and there would be no escape from the conclusion that they have been of tremendous help to each other.

If Mrs. Gandhi was instrumental in paving the way, unwittingly though, for the assumption of power by the BJP under the leadership of Mr. Vajpayee four years ago and enabled him to get a fresh lease of political life, after a defeat in the confidence motion in the Lok Sabha, Mr. Vajpayee has contributed handsomely to her emergence as an alternative. What else was the meaning of her attack and his defence in the joint sitting?

In the exchange of uncomplimentary references, Mrs. Gandhi clearly had the better of Mr. Vajpayee.

Invoking her legitimate right as the Leader of Opposition, she made some sharp political points. For instance, she reflected the belief of a good number of people in the country when she charged the Prime Minister with succumbing to internal pressures from the Sangh Parivar and rhetorically inquired whether he would follow that course or protect the welfare of the people.

And to drive home the point, she asked ``will he be submissive or will he uphold the prestige of the high office he holds? His moment of reckoning has come.''

Mr. Vajpayee could either have ignored her charge or made fun of her remarks or countered her charges politically point by point.

He chose none of these courses and, instead, seemed to question her right to make the type of points she had made. Treating her remark as a personal attack on him, he wanted her to make amends.

This was an avoidable display of peevishness, and, as a result, he suffered by comparison, walking into her trap, as it were. Unwittingly, he gave her a boost, further enhanced because of the humiliating defeat of the BJP at the hands of the Congress in the Delhi Municipal Corporation elections that followed soon after.

In an ironic reversal of roles, she received a major unearned advantage from Mr. Vajpayee, in the same way that he had benefited from her strategy in 1999 when her insistence on forming a ``Congress only'' government led to a political crisis, leaving no option to President, Mr. K.R. Narayanan, but to order a fresh election, in which the Vajpayee-led combine was the winner.

This was the second such occasion. Earlier, towards the end of 1997, the Congress(I), at her instance, was responsible for bringing down the United Front government, headed by Inder Kumar Gujral — an act that brought the BJP to power at the Centre for the first time.

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