Fickle loyalties

Although political parties saw some of their members voting against official candidates in the biennial elections to the Rajya Sabha, the biggest to do about it is taking place in the Congress. Unlike the BJP in UP and Rajasthan, and regional parties, all of whom suffered from cross-voting, the Congress has been quick to start investigations in Maharashtra where one official candidate, Najma Heptullah, just scraped through and the other, Ram Pradhan, lost. It would be nice to think this is a determined bid to deal with party indiscipline and the corruption that is suspected to lie at the heart of it. But closer to the truth is the fact that the defeat of Pradhan strikes at the very heart of the new Congress leadership structure. What compelled an unusually prompt and extensive post-mortem was the uneasy relationship between the two most important leaders in the party today, Sonia Gandhi and Sharad Pawar.

Sonia Gandhi has gone out on a limb in trying to pinpoint a conspiracy behind the defeat of Pradhan,widely seen as her personal candidate and a man slated for major responsibility in the party. It is no mystery what Vijaybhaskar Reddy, Rajesh Pilot and A.K. Antony would have learned from their interviews with Maharashtra Congress legislators and leaders in Mumbai. As the party high command had been informed on the eve of voting, the loyalty of a few party MLAs was suspect but with assured support from a group of independent MLAs, the MPCC’s plans looked workable. In the event, as many as six or eight Congress MLAs were prevailed upon to break ranks, some because of monetary inducements, others for political reasons related to the frustrations of the old guard in Maharashtra. Given this very visible outcome of the investigations, the MPCC may be rapped on the knuckles for being over-ambitious in trying to back an independent candidate alongside the two official ones. Beyond that the high command is left with no choice but to take action against the errant MLAs and their mentors. But it is an open questionwhether the party president will be prepared to go so far as to openly discipline some of Pawar’s rivals when the consequence would be to strengthen his hand in the state even further.

Had Gandhi and Pawar shared a healthier relationship, the Rajya Sabha affair could have been handled jointly instead of developing as it has additional cross currents of tension. For all the world and the Congress worker there is the appearance of a tussle between the party president and the leader of the Congress in the Lok Sabha. And this when the party needs to see is more trust and cooperation at the top. Sonia Gandhi has begun to function through a series of regular and ad hoc committees which give the impression of a decentralised style of leadership. The impression is misleading. There is no disguising the fact that there is an inner circle and membership is not related entirely to political weight and experience. Being on Gandhi’s wave-length is not what should matter as much as the ability to mobilise the partyorganisation and the people. Only on that basis can the Congress party build a solid collective leadership.