New. Improved. More effective.

Much has changed since the time Rajiv fell in love with Sonia andchanged the destiny of the Maino family, whose main political interest till then was the fate of Italy’s fascist dictator Benito Mussolini. India, or even less Indian politics, was as alien to Stephano Maino as the concept of democracy. Not that it bothered Sonia. She was never more than an average student but she had one advantage. An adamant streak which helped her spot what she wanted and then put her on the road to achieving it.

It was life with Rajiv then. Now, the BJP is realising the power of that adamance. Nothing, not even the periodic attacks on her Italian lineage or the references to the Bofors case, has persuaded Sonia to return to the idyllic life she enjoyed before plunging into active politics in February this year. Along the way she has retained the stern, cold image which has so successfully kept the sundry Congress powerbrokers at arm’s length. Hardly anyone in the Congress Working Committee can claim access to 10, Janpath, and Sonia isn’t about to change this in a hurry.

Very early inher political life, Sonia learnt a lesson she hasn’t forgotten yet. Most political parties in the country saw the Congress’s past, which included the Emergency, the 1984 anti-Sikh riots and the Babri Masjid demolition, as an impossible burden. Coupled with the negatives of the dynastic rule of the Nehru-Gandhi family, the rupture was too great to be repaired. Or so it was in early 1998. Only Sonia realised shrewdly that her family’s past was her biggest weapon.

Over the next few months, she quietly donned the mantle of Indira and Rajiv whenever it suited her. Slowly, people were being exposed to the woman who was seen as the embodiment of the positives of her husband and her mother-in-law. By the time the BJP read the writing on the wall, and gave up using the outsider tag and the Bofors case as weapons to attack her, the damage was done. A wave of a nature not seen for years had decimated the BJP in Delhi and Rajasthan and handed it a humiliating defeat in Madhya Pradesh.

Sonia had arrived. From Kashmirto Kerala, people talked about Sonia. Vajpayee was a distant second. So what is Sonia, the politician, like? Any attempt to understand this part of her must involve her days as a student. “She studied just enough to get by,” an assistant in the school Sonia studied in was quoted as saying some months ago in an Indian magazine. Sonia does the same in politics. She interacts just enough to get by. There is none of the stateswoman-like qualities of an Indira. Nor the spontaneity of a Rajiv. A careful, typical, non-newsy, gift-wrapped package is what Sonia continues to be after many hectic months criss-crossing the country’s dusty roads and tracks.

She still handles every question as if it was dynamite. Not once has she generated news by what she said. Her speeches are still read out and she goes extempore only when she is not required to say anything. Like the time, when she held hands with and comforted farmers in Haryana.

In a sense, this is the big problem 10, Janpath, will face in future. Sonia canhardly afford to be a female version of either Narasimha Rao, Deve Gowda or I.K. Gujral, all Prime Ministers who stayed stiff and distant till their last moments as PMs. At some stage, the woman in Sonia has to pip the politician in her to the post. In that will come Sonia’s true victory. Of not letting the artificial rule over the natural. Of letting people know what she is like. Reaching out to them and being reached out to. Becoming one with the people she says she wants to work for.

Her biggest weapon, the Dynasty that shaped her, could easily turn into a huge liability if she doesn’t grow out of it. Thus far, Priyanka looks to be the natural heir of the Indira-Rajiv legacy, combining the best of both and getting into the public eye at an early age. At one stage, Sonia was seen as the reluctant mother fulfilling her role in paving the way for her daughter to do the rest. That may not hold true now but she still has one big factor to be wary of.

The composition of the CWC shows the same people who putNarasimha Rao into the hot seat when Sonia refused to take Rajiv’s place after his assassination in 1991. Rao’s best friends at one time were Arjun Singh, K. Karunakaran, Pranab Mukherjee and Jitendra Prasada. All four swiftly became Kesri’s pals by dumping Rao in an infamous episode. Now, all four are Sonia loyalists after having shoved Kesri into an early retirement. A situation that should logically alarm her. Fifty-two is not a bad time to reflect. Perhaps, a new Sonia could still emerge. Beginning December 9.