Unravelling the Congress mind

Answer: We are waiting for someone to kick the stool.

Q: But you had said you would not topple another government.

A: We had also said that quot; we shall fulfill our constitutional obligationsquot; should the government fall.

Q: Parties or groups who might pull out and bring down the present government will only do so if you incorporate them in your apparatus when you fulfill your quot; constitutional obligations.quot;

A: These are secret political matters.

Q: Why have you decided to contrive the BJP8217;s departure at this juncture?

A: They looked wobbly for the first six months. Recently they have begun to look stable.

Q: Why ?

A: The budget and the bus journey to Lahore have given them a boost. Now they are planning a bus journey to Dhaka. Then Clinton is reading books on India. He mayturn up when they are in power. We would rather have him around when we are in the saddle.

Q: Have you heard the story of the man who ended up eating a 100 onions and being beaten with a stick a hundred times. You allowed the BJP coalition to stabilise for a year and you will now face the charge of toppling yet another government. You would not have faced either of these charges if you had diligently forged a coalition soon after the 1998 general elections in March. You would have been in power today.

A: We would not have been in power. Sitaram Kesri would have been prime minister. He was the Congress president.

Q: Who would have joined the coalition under that wily old oaf?

A: Those two crude Yadavs would have supported him to the hilt. They would have been in power. We would have been out in the cold. That is why we scuttled the project. Pulled out Kesari8217;s nameplate from the Congress office in a matter of hours. Saved the Congress from becoming a caste organisation. We installed Sonia Gandhi, amember of the Nehru parivar, as our president.

Q: But Sonia could have become prime minister in March 1998?

A : She was not interested in being tainted with unseemly coalition politics. She was interested in building up the party from the district upwards. Holding party elections. Cleaning up the stables. It was as part of this approach that she organised that brainstorming session in Panchmarhi in September.

Q : What was decided at Panchmarhi?

A : The Left was keen to have some of their Leftism introduced into our economic resolution. This was rejected. We decided to go into the elections in Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and Delhi without encouraging coalition seekers like Laloo and Mulayam. We thrashed the BJP in all the three states. Our refusal to encourage coalitions had succeeded. We decided to shun coalitions.

Q : Two questions arise. In Rajasthan, MP and Delhi it was a direct Cong-BJP contest. There was no third force to coalesce with. From this limited experience you extracted theformula that you can live without coalitions. But you do need coalitions in states like U.P and Bihar, don8217;t you?

Secondly, was not November, when you had won in three states, the right time to plan the BJP8217;s ouster at the Centre? You were riding a crest then.

A: Laloo and Mulayam have stolen the Congress base in the two states. For the Congress to revive in the two states, Laloo and Mulayam would have to be fought, weakened and destroyed. The continuance of the BJP at the Centre suited us in this regard. Together we would squeeze the two Yadavs.

Q : In other words, the BJP is your eventual enemy but your immediate targets are the two Yadavs. An enemy8217;s enemy is my friend! Remember the saying?

A. : That8217;s the difficulty. Propaganda was afoot that the Congress was in cahoots with the BJP. That is the reason we have decided to think of alternatives.

Q. : But if the BJP continued in power, the contradictions beween Vajpayee and the RSS would sharpen. Ever thought of Vajpayee as a consensus leader ofa national government?

A. : Vajpayee has the vision to have outgrown the Sangh Parivar but he has too much character to abandon the parivar in which he was reared.

Q. : But how do you explain your somersault on Bihar?

A. : We have finally concluded that we cannot do without coalitions in Bihar and U.P.

Q. : The BSP supported the BJP on the Bihar vote. So your only coalition possibility in U.P. is Mulayam. Will you be willing to eat crow?

A. : Don8217;t be nasty. We are in difficulties. Salman Khursheed has been the hardest working PCC president. Heaven knows what will become of him.

Q. : So now that you have decided to make a bid for power, it means Sonia Gandhi will become prime minister soon?

A. : Why should she be tainted with the coalition mess? We will have someone else in the interim. She will lead us into general elections along with state elections in Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh in November.

Q. : You will then return with an absolute majority and Sonia will then become primeminister?

A. : No.