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Sonia Gandhi's mission
(im)possible
By Sudha Ramachandran
NEW DELHI - The no-confidence vote in the Indian
parliament last week is of significance not so much for
its outcome - the government's victory was a foregone
conclusion - but for the pointers it provides to how the
forthcoming elections to five state assemblies and the
Lok Sabha (the lower house of parliament) might turn
out.
The two-day debate that preceded the vote
was partisan and acrimonious, as was to be expected. It
signals that the country will witness a sharply
polarized and personalized election campaign, a
no-holds-barred contest between the Bharatiya Janata
Party (BJP)-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA) and a
Congress-led opposition.
The voting on the
no-confidence motion instigated by the Congress saw the
constituents of the ruling NDA coalition closing ranks.
At one time, it did seem that the Dravida Menethra
Kazhagam, an NDA constituent that has been peeved over
the BJP's overtures to its rival the All-India Anna
Dravida Munetra Kazhagam, would abstain. It eventually
stood by the government. And the National Conference,
which recently quit the NDA, abstained. The government's
survival was never in doubt and it sailed through with a
comfortable margin of 126 votes.
There has been
much discussion as to why the Congress mooted the motion
when it did not have the numbers to bring down the
government. Was it yet another instance of silly
strategy on the part of its leader, Sonia Gandhi? With
assembly elections a few months away, why did the
Congress risk this loss of face?
Congress
leaders have argued that the no-confidence motion was
not aimed at bringing down the government, but at
exposing it. Analysts say the Congress was setting the
stage for the upcoming elections. It saw in the
televised debate an opportunity to reach out to the
people and draw their attention to the failures of the
government. Most important, the Congress game plan, it
is said, was to position Sonia, who is the leader of the
opposition in parliament, as the opposition's
prime-ministerial candidate and to establish that the
other opposition parties accept her leadership. The
no-confidence vote left these other opposition parties,
including the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP), which is
opposed to Sonia becoming prime minister, with little
option but to line up behind the Congress in the vote.
Sonia's performance in parliament has improved
public perception of her leadership. While her
public-speaking skills still lag way behind her main
adversary - Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee - she
has shown considerable improvement.
Sonia is no
orator. Her command of Hindi is limited, and her Hindi
and English are heavily laced with an Italian accent.
For her Hindi speeches, she reads from a prepared text
that is written out phonetically in Roman script. She is
uncomfortable before the microphone and ill at ease
before crowds. Reserved, uncommunicative, unsmiling, she
soon earned herself the nickname of "Sphinx". The
mechanical way in which she waves to crowds has prompted
her estranged sister-in-law, Menaka Gandhi, to compare
her arms to "windscreen wipers".
But in her
opening speech last week she pulled up the government
for poor performance on nine counts. Expecting another
hesitant performance from Sonia, several NDA leaders
were seen watching her with amused expressions on their
faces at the start of her speech. That quickly changed
as her speech progressed. Her attack was well crafted
and suitably combative, and she delivered it well.
Attempts by the NDA to unnerve her failed; she seemed
unruffled by their heckling. And while she read from a
prepared text, she did improvise. Political commentator
Harish Khare observed in The Hindu that this "gave her
performance a new, unexpected and pleasing flavor".
The point that Sonia clearly made in parliament
last week was that she is no pushover. Sonia of the
no-confidence motion of 2003 has indeed come a long way
from the Sonia campaigning in 1998. In fact, she has
shown improvement with every session of parliament. It
is not just in speech-making that Sonia has improved.
The political maturity she showed when she allowed the
People's Democratic Party to lead the coalition
government in Jammu and Kashmir - although the Congress
held more seats - has been widely recognized.
Sonia Gandhi's experience in the hurly-burly of
Indian politics has been extremely limited. She is a
member of the Nehru-Gandhi family that has produced
three prime ministers - Jawaharlal Nehru, Indira Gandhi
and Rajiv Gandhi. After her husband Rajiv became prime
minister in 1984, Sonia, while seen more in public,
stayed away from politics. After his assassination in
1991, there was pressure on her to assume the leadership
of the Congress party. She refused and continued to do
so for years. And yet her influence over the party was
always significant, fueling speculation for years that
she was bound to step into active politics.
But
it was only in December 1997 that Sonia became a member
of the Congress party. In 1998, with the Congress'
political fortunes rapidly sliding, Sonia stepped in to
campaign for the party. Her stated objective was to
"save India from the cynicism driving those who use
religion and caste to divide the country". Her target
was the BJP.
Sonia's confidence and performance
as party president and leader of the opposition have
undoubtedly improved over the years. The Gandhi name is
her biggest asset, and she puts it to excellent use. Her
detractors point to her lack of experience and her
inability fully to comprehend the complexity of India
and its people.
Indeed, it is her foreign origin
- Italian - that is her biggest drawback, one that the
BJP has attacked time and again. It is just not the
right wing in the country that is opposed to Sonia
becoming prime minister. Many intellectuals and liberals
are also uncomfortable with the idea that India, which
was engaged in a long struggle to free itself of the
colonial yoke, might soon have a "foreigner" as its
prime minister.
At 79 years, the ailing Vajpayee
is still the secular-moderate face of the BJP. It is he
who makes the BJP acceptable to its allies and to the
Indian people at large. His oratory is certainly not as
riveting as it was even some years ago. His government's
achievements have been patchy. Yet few blame him for
that.
Sonia's popularity is growing. And
although Vajpayee continues to be more popular, the gap
between the two is narrowing.
An opinion poll
conducted by India Today-ORG MARG from July 24 to August
6 indicates that while 52 percent of the respondents
felt that Vajpayee's performance was either good or
outstanding, only 38 percent felt the same way about
Sonia. And while 37 percent felt that he would make a
better prime minister, 25 percent think she would.
The good news for the BJP is that he is ahead.
The bad news is that she is slowly catching up. A
similar survey conducted six months ago indicated that
34 percent thought Vajpayee would make a better prime
minister while 19 percent felt this of Sonia. The
surveys indicate that while Vajpayee's popularity has
increased by three percentage points in six months,
Sonia's has risen by six points in the same period.
Vajpayee's popularity is more than that of the
party or the alliance that he heads. The party and the
NDA allies need him. Sonia, in contrast, is less popular
than the party she heads. On the face of it, it might
seem that the Congress would be better off without her.
However, she is the only leader in the Congress who
appeals to the electorate across the country. This has
resulted in Congress leaders admitting that the TINA
(There Is No Alternative) factor applies to Sonia's
leadership of the party.
The India Today-ORG
MARG survey had more bad news for the ruling coalition.
Its popularity is waning the most in the north and the
east the country. While the swing in popularity over
time might seem marginal, it could translate into major
losses in terms of seats, especially since the northern
and eastern states hold the most seats in parliament.
The Congress, according to the survey, has made
major gains in the north and east and is not losing
ground in the south and west either. But it will have to
find enough friends to be able to form a government, as
it is unlikely to win enough seats in parliament to do
so on its own. It remains to be seen whether the old
warhorses in parties that are potential allies would
accept a political novice, and a "foreigner" to boot, as
prime minister.
The BJP's allies might be
troublesome and embarrassing. But they fall in line
dutifully behind Vajpayee, no questions asked. The
Congress's possible allies - the Samajwadi Party or the
NCP - in contrast are not a band of Sonia loyalists.
They will not accept Sonia without exacting a huge price
of the Congress.
Its performance not providing
much to shout about during the poll campaign and Ayodhya
(the Babri mosque dispute) no more a vote-catcher, it is
certain that the BJP will once again focus on Sonia's
foreign origin. Once again, the BJP and its allies will
raise the slogan "Ram Raj versus Rome Raj".
Whether the Congress goes on the defensive on
the issue and fritters its time defending Sonia's
credentials or whether it will focus on the BJP's poor
record on issues such as national security, treatment of
Dalits and religious minorities and so on remains to be
seen.
The no-confidence debate and its outcome
signal that the Congress might put on a good show, but
not one that is good enough to bring down the
government.
(Copyright 2003 Asia Times Online
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