Shedding the fig leaf

For a while, when a contest was announced for the party president's post late last year, the first challenge ever to a member of the Nehru...

For a while, when a contest was announced for the party president8217;s post late last year, the first challenge ever to a member of the Nehru-Gandhi dynasty, it had seemed there may be stirrings of inner party democracy in India8217;s oldest party. But that hope was stillborn. It wasn8217;t just that Jitendra Prasada8217;s own credibility was more than a little suspect. It was also that despite Sonia Gandhi8217;s victory being a foregone conclusion, there was evidence that the party machinery was manipulated by her footsoldiers to render the contest more sterile than it already was. The entire electoral college was packed; the selection of PCC delegates was blatantly short circuited. Only the very naive will shed tears for internal democracy, therefore, at the latest development in the Congress party. Most pradesh units have reportedly sent in one-line resolutions authorising Sonia Gandhi to nominate all the 24 members of the Congress Working Committee CWC; there may be no elections, after all, to the highest decision-makingforum of the party. The scuttling of elections to the CWC does not so much represent the betrayal of a promise, as the shedding of a fig leaf.

The importance of fig leaves must not be underestimated though. For the first time since she took over the party, Sonia Gandhi could boast of at least a formal stamp of legitimacy. The overwhelming margin of her victory against Prasada could be flaunted as a badge, the flawed poll process notwithstanding. For the first time, the Queen of the Coterie could lay claim, howsoever dubious, to the mantle of Elected Leader. At this juncture, then, why would Sonia Gandhi be willing to sabotage the willing suspension of disbelief that her election may have earned for her? Wouldn8217;t she like to bask in it at least a little while longer? On the other hand, perhaps the pressures to abort elections are far too strong on the Congress president. Perhaps they far outweigh the temptation to luxuriate in the quot;democraticquot; halo. If elections are held to the CWC, they may yield upsets for leaders who stand a far surer chance of making it into the august body through the nomination route. The move to authorise the Congresspresident, ostensibly aimed at giving her a free hand, may in reality be a move by this lobby to ensure its own continuity in the CWC. Elections may be anathema to that influential section as well which fears the emergence of other power centres within the party.

Whatever the reason may be, the move to abort the CWC elections is more confirmation, if more was needed, that the Congress is completely miscast in the role of the country8217;s main Opposition party. Decades of prostration to the dynasty have sapped it of internal resources, of vitality and vigour. Today it may be difficult to say whether the dynasty needs the party more than the party needs the dynasty. It will be asking too much of such a party to fulfil the role of a vigorous opposition, perhaps, so essential to the functioning of a living democracy.