Stop this street theatre

If the manner of Sonia Gandhi’s refusal to be prime minister was astute political drama, the scenes outside her doorstep are fast spiralling into a pathetic spoof. Whether by design or circumstance, public displays of sycophancy have become a raging sideshow in the Congress’s return to Raisina Hill. These antics, in fact, threaten to take the shine off what could be a graceful change of guard in New Delhi. In days past, Congress workers and representatives have exhausted the party’s well-thumbed directory of gimmicks. They pleaded. They wept. They put guns to their heads. They burnt effigies of anyone who’d dare find fault with their supreme leader. They waved resignation threats. They vandalised offices of political parties opposed to Sonia’s ascendancy to the top job. They even attacked Congressmen asking them to accept the reality that Madam will not be PM. They wrote their entreaties in blood. They must now stop.

Congress workers’ expressions of support to their leader have traditionally been charged with emotion and stridency. When that leader happens to be a Nehru-Gandhi, a little bit of mythologising is inevitable. In the party’s scheme of things, one would have had to allow for a little bit of time for the message to go out that Sonia Gandhi was not swapping 10 Janpath for 7 Race Course Road. But as curiosity gave way to bewilderment, the gathering crowds of party faithfuls on Janpath, and on countless streets through the country, began drifting into vaudeville. The effect is two-fold. The hysteria — whether it be in the Central Hall of Parliament when tearful MPs beseeched their party president to reconsider her decision to decline the prime ministerial post or whether it be outside her barricaded residence with youth leaders shouting their loyalty in the hot May sun — accentuates the neatness of Sonia decision. But at the same time, the attack, for instance, on BJP offices in Delhi and Lucknow is part of the same unfolding political narrative.

The onus thus is squarely on the Congress’s top leadership to see that these booming howls of fealty are terminated. The thugs threatening vandalism should be firmly reprimanded. And the weeping hangers-on must be gently pointed to gainful work in their party’s cause.