Her own party mag says Sonia not up to scratch

The editorial, written by none other than senior leader Vasant Sathe (he is chairman of the magazine’s Editorial Board), says that “there is a certain amount of confusion and mental depression amongst the senior members…the immediate cause has been the inability by some to get the Rajya Sabha seats.”

The editorial (which, ironically, is supposed to reflect the official party line) goes on to say: “Soniaji has been and continues to be fully aware of her own limitation, both inherent and circumstantial…she has never made any claim to having the charismatic capacity to single-handedly get the masses of India to vote the Congress to power.”

This pointed criticism struck home today when a majority of her MPs kept away from the protest march she led to the PM’s residence. While most CWC members were there, only a few of the party’s MPs — around 35 to 40 — were present in what was supposed to be a Congress Parliamentary Party (CPP) protest march.

This, despite the fact that the AICC general secretaries incharge of various states as well as senior leaders were asked to ensure their MPs landed up. The CPP comprises 113 members in the Lok Sabha and 58 in the Rajya Sabha, a total of 171.

Sathe’s editorial, at some places, almost reads like an “independent” critique: “Not that there are no other more brilliant and seasoned leaders in the Congress…even if some one personality were projected there are others who would pull him down. The crab culture is well-known in the Congress. It is because of this great handicap that all leaders find a common acceptable uniting point in the Nehru-Gandhi family. It is a harsh reality of our Parliamentary democratic system that Soniaji is the only Congress leader who continues to draw huge crowds of common people in all parts of the nation.”

The senior leader is of the view that Sonia’s “natural reserved and and shy nature was a great handicap with the media and the intellectual elite… language was one of the major hurdles.” And referring to the need for restructuring the party from the grassroots level, he has also called for a generational change in the leadership, suggesting that party leaders above 70 years of age should now assume only an advisory role.

To be fair to Sathe, he has also written positively about his party chief, pointing out how “she had acquired a good command over Hindi and is able to communicate effectively in huge public meetings…even in the Lok Sabha she is now making effective interventions.”

The magazine, which was circulated to mediapersons at the daily briefing today, caused a fair bit of flutter as party spokespersons Margaret Alva and Anil Shastri were hard put to defend its editorial. Shastri, who is among those on the editorial board, asserted that the views expressed by Sathe were his own and not that of the party. He could not however explain why then were his views carried in the form of an editorial of the party’s official mouthpiece.

This is not the first time that the monthly magazine, which was commissioned one-and-a-half years ago to spread the party’s views on various issues among its workers and supporters, has caused red-faces in the party. In an earlier issue, the magazine had published a adulatory interview of Ajit Pawar, the nephew of none other than NCP chief and Sonia-baiter Sharad Pawar. Ajit is a minister in the Congress-NCP coalition government in Maharasthra.

In fact a screening committee was set up as a sequel to the Pawar interview to prevent further faux pas. The magazine boasts of a battery of senior party leaders on its editorial board, including Natwar Singh, Mani Shankar Aiyar, Salman Khursheed, Girija Vyas and Anil Shastri.

Dr Singh dissents

NEW DELHI:Differences cropped up in the Congress leadership over its stand on subsidies when Leader of Opposition in the Rajya Sabha Manmohan Singh questioned the continuance of “non-merit” subsidies. Ironically, party chief Sonia marched to the PM’s house to demand a rollback in subsidy cuts.

Singh told the Rajya Sabha that continuing with non-merit subsidies was simply unsustainable and warned that if the fiscal health of the Union and states was not improved, the country would have to say goodbye to all talks of universalising elementary education and primary health care.