Wooing Left while warning the rulers, Sonia Gandhi style

By reasserting its commitment to a socialistic pattern of society, as contained in the historic Avadi resolution of the party in 1955, the Congress is specially targeting the Left. Jyoti Basu may have called for a tie-up with the Congress, but he is not the (CPM) Communist Party of India (Marxist). After all, the party’s central committee had denied him the prime ministership in 1996. The party Congress will decide the CPM’s line in Calcutta (October 5-11). TheCPM and CPI may have little option but to do business with the Congress if they want to fight the BJP, but the Congress leadership is trying to soften the hardliners in the Left by its recent rhetoric in Pachmarhi.

Gandhi also gave a clear signal to the Left by letting Pranab Mukherji present the economic policy paper to the open session. This was a calculated move. In the normal course Manmohan Singh, who besides being the former finance minister and CWC member is also the leader of the party in the Rajya Sabha, should have presented the paper.

Gandhi, who flitted from group to group, chose to spend almost three hours with the group on economic affairs. She listened intently though she did not say anything.

The Congress sees many advantages in moving through the Left. A tie-up with the Communist parties, issue-based or otherwise, will improve its secular credentials as it makes a determined bid to win back the minorities. It will also helps the party acquire more of a pro-poor image which is essentialif it is to regain its old constituency.

All this will enable the Congress to negotiate with Mulayam and Laloo from a relatively better position than would otherwise be the case. Otherwise, the two Yadav chieftains can make the going rough for the Congress both in the distribution of tickets at election time and in running a coalition government. The CPM is in a position today to rein in Mulayam. Its constant projection of Mulayam as the symbol of the fight against communalism gives him a measure of respectability.

This is not to say that the party is going back on the policy of liberalisation initiated by the Government of Narasimha Rao and before that of Rajiv Gandhi. The Declaration put on record the party’s appreciation of the 1991-96 economic reforms. But it does show the party’s growing awareness that an effective social security net is a political must in a large and poor country like India, and that the language the party resorts to has to be very different from the one it has relied on so far.

There is an increasing debate and questioning in the party about the political fallout of the policy of liberalisation pursued during the last seven years. The Pachmarchi Declaration comes against the backdrop of the economic turmoil in Russia and the question mark raised about the alternatives offered by the East Asian Tigers.

The Avadi resolution, making welfare state and a socialist economy the national aim of the Congress, had triggered off criticism by Charan Singh who had later parted company with the Congress. It had also paved the way for Rajaji launching his Swatantra party. The Avadi resolution was followed by elections in Andhra Pradesh, and the Congress won a decisive victory in the state though earlier it had been doomed.