By double-distilling the loyalty of Congressmen in the recent elections that saw her distastefully elected party president, Sonia Gandhi has lived up to the promise of her triumph at the May 1999 AICC session following the expulsion of Messers Sharad Pawar, Purno Sangma and Tariq Anwar – she will be the supreme leader and will not tolerate any dissent whatsoever. It therefore comes as no surprise that notwithstanding the sheer magnitude of her victory (a tally of 7,448 as against contender Jitendra Prasad’s paltry 94 votes), her coterie is unable to shake off its fury at having to go through the contest.
Press reports indicate that the ballot papers were numbered and kept unmixed during counting, and that the miniscule but unexpected extra support garnered by Mr. Prasad will now be identified. If this ominous information is indeed true, then Congress kangaroo courts can be expected to spring into action in the coming weeks. A purge seems inevitable, in keeping with the party’s highest Soviet-style traditions in which the supreme leader cannot be questioned, leave alone challenged.
In this sense, the coterie’s resentment at Mr. Jitendra Prasad is understandable; his is a case of betrayal by the classic insider. As Signora Gandhi herself suggested candidly, if somewhat unwisely, while on her way to Lakshadweep, Prasad is no greenhorn and has himself been a key figure in the powerful coteries around former Prime Ministers Rajiv Gandhi and P.V. Narasimha Rao, and former party president Sitaram Kesri. He is, therefore, exceedingly familiar with Congress’ culture of craven sycophancy and would know better than to challenge the high command. He would know he didn’t have a hope in heaven or hell of actually carrying the day, and above all, that he was a ‘media event’ only until the ballots were actually cast.
Stipulating therefore, that Prasad did know, it would be pertinent to ask what compelling reasons made him reject the coterie’s offers of reconciliation and compromise, and forced him on his lonely trajectory. Surprisingly, there are no obvious answers. A quintessential backroom boy, Prasad is not the stuff of which heroes or martyrs are made. He is no charismatic yet calibrated rebel like the late Rajesh Pilot, nor is he a stolid regional leader with a mass base to protect, like Sharad Pawar. While he may have shared the increasing unrest in Congress over Signora Gandhi’s uninspiring leadership, it is not easy to understand why Pilot’s almost cataclysmic death did not nip the incipient rebellion in the bud. This point is particularly germane in view of the poor performance of both Sharad Pawar and Rajesh Pilot in the presidential elections against the non-charismatic, non-dynastic Sitaram Kesri not so long ago.
It can, of course, be argued, that like Sharad Pawar, Jitendra Prasad was being sidelined and humiliated in his home state, Uttar Pradesh. But Prasad could not possibly harbour the illusion that he was as weighty in his native state as Pawar was (and is) in his state. Personal factors therefore do not fully account for his decision to go ahead with the little overt support he had –enough to file his papers – particularly in the wake of the intimidating show of strength with which Sonia Gandhi filed her own nomination the previous day. It was as though she was daring him to stand up to her.
Stand up he did, so it seems reasonable to suppose that Prasad was assured of support from some powerful state leaders, which however, failed to materialize in the wake of the coterie’s blitzkrieg. It is also possible that he and his small band of followers had factored in the possibility of such an eventuality, and prepared themselves to part company with the parent organization. They may even have sounded out other parties before taking the fateful plunge.
Yet, despite being aware that he was ploughing a lonely furrow, Prasad was clearly unprepared for the level of the playing field. It speaks volumes about Sonia Gandhi’s calibre as a leader that the mere presence of a nondescript challenger could so thoroughly shatter her pretended aversion to politics and bring her Sicilian background into full play. Not only was Prasad shamelessly denied the addresses and telephone numbers of PCC delegates in state after state, but he was pointedly ignored and boycotted everywhere. This compelled him to up the ante in retaliation, and his letters asking party men to vote without fear and demanding simultaneous elections of the PCC presidents, not to mention the suggestion that estranged Congressmen like Pawar and Sangma be invited back to the organization, would have further sundered his relationship with Sonia Gandhi and her coterie.
They in turn responded by squatting a fly with a sledgehammer. Prasad’s defeat was no doubt a foregone conclusion, yet the manner of his defeat fulsomely vindicated his charges against the coterie and exposed Sonia Gandhi as a small-time factional leader desperate for the security of power and dependent upon rival coteries to perpetuate her control over the party. That is why the Signora quickly rescinded her initial lofty decision not to campaign at all and permitted Ambika Soni and others to launch a frenzied campaign on her behalf, virtually commandeering the electoral college to vote for her, even if one discounts allegations of rigging. The Sonia clique’s assertion that Prasad received an unanticipated forty votes reveals the extent to which it tried to identify and isolate his followers, and smacks more of a terror-cum-intimidation campaign than the election of a democratic political party.
This is the second time that the nation has had a frontal view of Sonia Gandhi’s naked face, the first being her brazen attempt last year to be Prime Minister with the help of an obliging President, notwithstanding such technical niceties as the fact that she was not a Member of either House of Parliament. Last year, the very attempt to question the Signora’s Prime Ministerial ambitions resulted in the exit of Sharad Pawar and his associates after attempts to browbeat them into silence failed. Given this track record, it is inconceivable that Sonia will permit Jitendra Prasad and his small band to continue to remain in the party after daring to stand when asked to crawl. The central election authority chairman, Mr. Ram Niwas Mirdha’s decision to postpone the election of PCC chiefs in the middle of the election process to give undue advantage to the insecure Signora is further proof, if any were needed, of her totalitarian mindset and pathological self-obsession.
As an inwardly crestfallen and deflated Congress party goes through the motions of celebrating the chronicle of an election foretold, there is an undercurrent of impending disaster. The Prasad camp has seized on this anxiety by demanding an early election of PCC presidents, particularly in Uttar Pradesh. A strong showing by its candidate and Jhansi MP, Sujan Singh Bundela, will put both Sonia Gandhi and her election managers in the dock and virtually prove that her election was rigged. Such minor details, however, do not worry the Signora overmuch. That is why her camp is currently in over-drive, trying to ensure nominations rather than elections of PCC chiefs, CWC members and AICC delegates. That is also, unfortunately, the reason why, though the BJP is nothing to write home about in UP, Congress is not in a position to give it a run for its money.
The Pioneer, 21 November 2000