From widow to leader to ruler? Possible

There is little doubt that Sonia Gandhi happens to head the Congress at the right' time, when the party is on the way to revival. The BJ...

There is little doubt that Sonia Gandhi happens to head the Congress at the right8217; time, when the party is on the way to revival. The BJP has lost its claim of being a party with a difference and because Atal Behari Vajpayee had aroused high expectations, the feeling of let-down is all the greater. The absence of another centrist party like the Janata Dal as the centrepiece of a third alternative has left the field open for the Congress. For all the erosion it has suffered over the years, the Congress remains an all-India party.

For these reasons, it would have revived anyway. The mood of the middle class, which moulds public opinion, has changed and it now hankers for one-party rule that signifies stability.

But it is also a fact that had the party been headed by anyone other than Sonia Gandhi, say Narasimha Rao, Sitaram Kesri, Sharad Pawar or Arjun Singh today, the story might not have been the same. For Sonia Gandhi has united the party. Gone is the factionalism that dogged the party for seven years.The moment she decided to campaign before the last general elections, the exodus from the Congress which had helped create a hype for the BJP, stopped. The recent elections showed an expansion in the party8217;s base. Sonia Gandhi has turned out to be both the cause and the beneficiary of the revival of the Congress.

While she has appealed overtly to the dalits, tribals and the minorities, her wooing of the middle classesand the upper castes,particularly the Brahmins who formed the mainstay of the Congress support in North India has been covert and in some way more significant.

She refrained from displaying a greed for power, and this has gone down well with them. She hibernated for seven years like a Hindu widow before coming into the political arena. She has exhibited a reluctance to topple Vajpayee. She has shown an ability to control and discipline the party.

She went out of her way to emphasise the quot;Hinduquot; identity of her family, even though she is a Christian. The red thread on her wristtied fordoing poojas8217;, her references to quot;us Kashmirisquot;, her response, quot;Not merry Christmas but a happy new yearquot;, when wished on Christmas day by Congressmen, her quip in Gujarat that quot;I have come here as the President of the Indian National Congressquot; and not as a Christian when she was asked about her religionall these show an awareness that she has to tread carefully. The middle class has come to terms with the possibility of Sonia Gandhi becoming the country8217;s prime minister.

Her appeal lies in the fact that she is a member of the Gandhi-Nehru parivar, and is seen as the inheritor of that legacy in a society that continues to be highly feudal. She has encouraged around her the mystique of a ruling family.

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Her Achilles heel could be her Italian origins. So far she has not invited the charge of being a foreigner, not even when she took the decision to sell the National Herald founded by Jawaharlal Nehru. This is a flank which is likely to get opened when she is in power.

The real challenge before SoniaGandhi is to rebuild the organisation, and this will mean strengthening the state bosses.

Jawaharlal Nehru was more than the first among equals and yet he could gather stalwarts around him. Indira Gandhi could bypass the party, once she had firmed up her position, and go directly to the people. She won elections in 1971 and in 1980, but these victories were not a barometer of the health of the organisation which had steadily weakened.

That is why the steam went out of successive Congress governments even before their term was over. This happened to Indira Gandhi in 1971 when the Durga8217; was facing a massive unrest by 1974. Rajiv Gandhi too had run into rough weather by 1986-87, despite the unprecedented 400 odd seats plus mandate in 1984. Narasimha Rao8217;s stint in power was marked by the failure of the oganisation.

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Sonia has neither Nehru8217;s preeminent position acquired through decades of struggle in the freedom movement nor the advantage Indira Gandhi had of years of apprenticeship in politics during theindependence movement and then as her father8217;s hostess. Moreover, Sonia is not a mass leadernot yet at any rate. While lakhs of people have come to hear her at her meetings, and she painstakingly reads out her speeches in Hindi, there is little chemistry in evidence of the Indira Gandhi variety or of the kind that was evoked by her husband Rajiv.

She has been able to move well because of the wide nature of the inputs she has had to help her with decision-making. She has shied away from putting all her eggs in one basket, and encouraged a free expression of views at the morning meetings of senior leaders before evolving a consensus on issues. She turned her weakness, unfamiliarity about the party, caste system, language, country, into an advantage.

Therefore she will have to guard against a centralisation or personalisation of power. Unlike her predecessors, her strength will stem from the strength of the organisation she heads. And if she manages to put it on its feet at a time when the polity is badlyfragmented, her role will be historic.