Delhi will be messier, Madam

Speaking at a public meeting in Chennai, the Prime Minister confessed that the worst moments of his political life came courtesyJayalalitha. It took just a day for Sonia Gandhi to understand just what he meant.

8220;Sahodare-sahodarigale,8221; the Congress president began in her strangely accented Tamil. But one all-important sahodari wasn8217;t around to listen. The AIADMK boss and Sonia Gandhi were supposed to speak at a rally in Villipuram arranged by Tamil Nadu Congress Committee president K. Ramamurthy who is standing from the area. The Congress president cooled her heels for an hour before being informed that her AIADMK counterpart couldn8217;t make it as a 8220;sea of humanity8221; was holding her up.

This, as anyone acquainted with Tamil Nadu knows, was an eyewash. Villipuram is at least three hours away by road from Chennai assuming Jayalalitha8217;s motorcade raced there without stopping. It would be closer to five hours if she stopped on the way to campaign a bit. Jayalalitha didn8217;t leave Poes Gardens until half past three in the afternoon; 8220;sea of humanity8221; or not, she could never have made it to Villipuram when Sonia Gandhi arrived athalf past four.

This, as the BJP and its allies would attest, is par for the course where Jayalalitha is concerned. In the past she always found excuses to avoid meeting her colleagues in the alliance when she wanted to snub them. But why did she start working on Sonia Gandhi even before any votes were cast?Two reasons were making the round in Chennai. I was there at the time. First, there was Sonia Gandhi8217;s criticism of coalition governments earlier that day at Tiruchirapalli. Second, on Sunday morning Dr. Manmohan Singh stated on television that anyone who had broken the law 8212; specifically including Jayalalitha and Laloo Prasad Yadav 8212; would be punished.

Let me begin with the latter. Frankly, I don8217;t think Jayalalitha cares two hoots about what the former finance minister says or does on his own. Dr. Manmohan Singh is, and has always been, a mouthpiece for somebody else. He was the Chief Economic Adviser to the Government of India when the Chandra Shekhar ministry was forced to pawn gold. He wasNarasimha Rao8217;s man when the World Bank and the IMF wanted reforms. He invoked the principle of 8220;Caesar8217;s wife8221; when Sitaram Kesri wanted Rao out of the way. And now he is Sonia Gandhi8217;s man. The AIADMK 8212; and the RJD 8212; must have wondered whether he wasn8217;t speaking for Sonia Gandhi.

Right, let us leave the question of Jayalalitha8217;s alleged corruption for the moment, and turn to Sonia Gandhi8217;s remarks at Tirchirapalli. These weren8217;t off the cuff remarks, but the continuance of a theme begun at her first press conference. Which raises the question: if Sonia Gandhi is set against any coalition in Delhi, why is she bothering to forge alliances with Jayalalitha and the Rashtriya Janata Dal?

The AIADMK 8212; any party for that matter 8212; does not enter into an alliance out of pure altruism. Jayalalitha knows by now that demanding the dismissal of the Karunanidhi ministry in Tamil Nadu is pretty much a lost cause, but she can still insist on her boys getting a fair share of the cake in Delhi. Or does Sonia Gandhiexpect her allies to sit quietly in the somewhat farfetched assumption that the Congress-led alliance comes to power?

Sonia Gandhi may have been misled by the drama that ensued immediately after the Vajpayee government was toppled. At that point, Jayalalitha and her partymen were anxious to demonstrate that their actions in undermining the BJP-led government had been purely selfless. Not that anyone would have believed them, but never mind! So Sonia Gandhi duly received a letter of support from the AIADMK when she went off to Rashtrapati Bhawan.

Is that still true today? Some have argued that a General Election wipes the slate clean; if the AIADMK-Congress alliance is approved by the electorate, can Sonia Gandhi subsequently backtrack? Why would she want her own men elected with AIADMK backing if she is going to be embarrassed by that connection in Delhi?

I am not, as readers of this column should know, any fan of Jayalalitha8217;s, but in this instance she has the right of the matter. Support fromoutside simply doesn8217;t work 8212; as the Congress itself has repeatedly demonstrated. Post-poll alliances are both unethical and impractical. Realistically, it is unlikely that any single party shall win an absolute majority; it makes sense, therefore, to take the electorate8217;s blessing before forming a government.

That is just as true in Bihar as in Tamil Nadu. It is Sonia Gandhi8217;s Congress that approached the Rashtriya Janata Dal for an alliance, not the other way around. The Congress begged 8212; at the moment of writing is continuing to do so 8212; for seats from Laloo Prasad Yadav. Sonia Gandhi8217;s personal intervention resulted in Yadav granting her party one additional constituency. We should be grateful to the RJD president for thus accurately judging Sonia Gandhi8217;s worth in Bihar 8212; one seat out of fifty-four comes to less than two per cent!

But all these theatricals do raise a serious question. India is a land of many creeds, of people speaking more languages than any other nation on earth, withvarying beliefs 8212; arguably the largest coalition on earth. If Sonia Gandhi cannot handle the pressures of keeping an alliance together before the polls, does she expect us to believe that she can keep India together afterwards?