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Journalism of Courage
It is a strange coincidence that both Atal Behari Vajpayee and Sonia Gandhi should finish one year of their tenure more or less at the same time, he as the prime minister and she as the Congress president. They have fought from the front in their own way: he, while giving battle to his adversaries; she, while staying in the background till other party leaders downed one another.Vajpayee8217;s task was harder. He had to fight fundamentalists, the Bajrang Dal and the Vishwa Hindu Parishad on the one hand, and defeat the detractors within his own party, the BJP, on the other. The RSS, which influences the BJP, considered him a mukut mask which it would discard after use. But his personal stock soared so high that the RSS and its parivar, including the Bajrang Dal and the VHP, had to bite the dust. Sonia Gandhi did not have to face such a situation. The party was so divided and demoralised that a person like her, with the halo of the Nehru dynasty, had only to walk in to occupy the highest position. She emergedtall because the leaders in the Congress were so small.
Unlike Vajpayee, she faced no resistance. The party was presented to her on a platter. There was no one to work against her behind her back. In fact, the Congress leaders were thankful to her for retrieving them from the dump into which they had been thrown by the public. Naturally she has come to rule them. To Vajpayee goes the credit of treating his party leaders with consideration. He knows he is more popularly accepted than anyone of them. But he regards them as his colleagues, never letting them feel slighted.In contrast, she is conscious of her position. The Congress leaders are non-entities. Therefore they vie with one another in sycophancy. The so-called defiant Rajesh Pilot was heading the line of obsequious courtiers standing in a line to congratulate her on the day she completed one year of Congress presidentship. Even Dr Manmohan Singh, expected to behave differently, was there. She seems to enjoy such a spectacle.
The Vajpayee government8217;s record is mostly dismal. Except for the solution of the Cauvery river dispute and a thaw in Indo-Pak hostility, he does not have much to show. The BJP enjoys far less reputation than it did before it assumed office at the centre. Yet Vajpa-yee is all that the party has. The recent improvement in the BJP8217;s image is also because his reputation has gone up.
The story of Sonia Gandhi is entirely different. She does not have to prove herself. Her word was final even when she was advising from outside. The office of Congress presidentship has only formalised her diktat. She carried theodium of being a foreigner8217;. But it has worn out considerably, although the real test will come if she becomes the prime minister. Her problem is not the party but her inability to pull down the BJP-led coalition she does not like.
The Congress believes that it can win a majority in the Lok Sabha straightaway. A survey conducted by a Telugu daily at Hyderabad confirms this. The survey shows that the Congress can sweep the parliamentary election in Andhra Pradesh if it is held now. If a well-run and forward-looking state can return the Congress to the Lok Sabha, most other states, badly administered and having no other clear option, may do the same.However, Sonia Ga-ndhi has reportedly realised that an early poll is not to the liking of even her own party8217;s Lok Sabha members. Ins-tead, she has turned her attention to communalism. She is convinced that the longer the BJP-led coalition stays, the greater will be the penetration of Hindutva in the country. She is getting reports from different states that thesecular structure is being demolished by the RSS parivar in the name of culture.The Congress gain may be negative because the voters have no other option after getting disillusioned with the BJP. But the fact remains that Sonia Gandhi, in comparison to Vajpayee, is gaining ground. Sonia Gandhi8217;s party has gained because of Vajpayee8217;s government8217;s non-performance, or flawed performance, whatever name you give it. She has advised her party to expose the BJP. This way she is no better than Vajpayee, who attacks the Congress day in and day out.
If principles were to be the criteria, both have lost. She, on the support she extended to Laloo Yadav in Bihar and he, on the allegations levelled by former finance ministry advisor Mohan Guruswamy. She made an issue of the appointment of a joint parliamentary committee JPC on the dismissal of former navy chief, Bhagwat, knowing well that defence is not discussed in market places. She sided with the corrupt Bihar government during the Lok Sabha motion on President8217;srule in the state. As for Vajpayee, he held nuclear tests to gain political mileage. It is a different matter that the strategy boomeranged because Pakistan too tested the bomb.
Just as there is no doubt that the BJP will not form the next government in New Delhi, in the same way there is no uncertainty about the Congress coming to power after the general election. It is, however, ironical that there is not a single state which the BJP can claim to be safe. Rajasthan and Delhi, its strongholds, have gone. It looks as if it is losing Gujarat as well as Maharashtra. The Congress is creeping forward in UP, Assam, and in Punjab. Karnataka, which will have the state election this November, is also going the Congress way.
It is not difficult to guess that the Congress will win at least 200 seats in the next Lok Sabha election, increasing its present strength of 140 by 60 more members. The BJP may not reach even the three digit figure it has at present 180. The second year is crucial for both the partiesbecause they will try to attract popular attention. Sonia may do better for the Congress. Vajpayee8217;s personal stock is going up but not that of his party. To do better, he should start to provide leadership, clarity of purpose and governmental skill 8212; qualities that have so far been absent. Sonia Gandhi is lucky because she has not been tried and found out. At present she is everything to everybody.
