The Rediff Special/Kuldip Nayar

Who can change the party's image is the real challenge before the Congress

One of India's leading political commentators reviews this week's developments in the Congress party.

The crisis of leadership has once again caught up with the Congress party.

After the assassination of Rajiv Gandhi, P V Narasimha Rao was first a stop-gap arrangement and then a stable alternative to the feuding satraps in the party. He was not tall but knew how not to allow anyone grow tall. He would chop the head before it was seen. Power and patronage also stood him in good stead.

The Congress defeat in the 1996 general election made him vulnerable. He thought he would save himself by giving up the Congress presidentship and nominating in his place his trusted man, Sitaram Kesri, the party treasurer. Rao has learnt to his cost that politics knows no trust. He has reportedly told his close associates that he should have given up the leadership of the parliamentary party and retained the Congress presidentship.

It is difficult to say whether he would have been able to save his skin. The real issue is that the Congress is out of power and Rao is being held responsible for it. Had he effected a coalition with the United Front -- he was working for it -- he would not have faced the humiliation of quitting on Kesri's orders.

The issue remains the same: How does the Congress enjoy power? The flutter in the party, following Rao's exit this week, is primarily because of its ambition to occupy a vantage position for the future. Congressmen in the forefront believe that the leadership of the parliamentary party is a ladder to climb to power, with the United Front if possible, without it if necessary.

Vying for the leadership of the parliamentary party are Sharad Pawar, Rajesh Pilot and Vijaya Bhaskar Reddy from the South. Kesri has an advantage over others. Being the Congress president, he can pull the party strings to muster support. But his disadvantage is the growing opinion that the two posts, the Congress presidentship and the parliamentary party's leadership, should not be held by the same person.

Indira Gandhi had rejected the argument. But then she had the clout of the prime ministership. Kesri has no such clout except the fact that the Congress president allots the party symbol to candidates in elections.

Youth is in Sharad Pawar's favour. Rao's loyalists have also swung in his favour. Sharad's advantage is that he has the support of those MPs who have not liked Kesri's zeal to bring old Congressmen to the party's fold.

Pilot is there in the hope that Sharad will bargain with him to get him on his side. Pilot is the only Congress Working Committee member who opposed Kesri when his name was proposed by Rao for the Congress presidentship. Vijay Bhaskar Reddy from Andhra Pradesh expects to be a dark horse, hoping that the Congress MPs, mostly from the southern states, will turn to him when the chips are down.

Whether the election will take place on January 3 is doubtful. Most Congress MPs do not want a division in their ranks. The party has avoided it in the past. Even stalwarts like Lal Bahadur Shastri and Morarji Desai managed to patch up their differences. So why not now?

Kesri seems to be emerging as the consensus candidate. He is considered more adept in the tactics that the party will require to come to power. With Madhavrao Scindia's return to the party and the proposed re-entry of Arjun Singh and N D Tewari, the Congress will be near the 150 MP mark in the 545-member Lok Sabha. Even if the 20 MPs of the Tamil Maanila Congress rejoin the party, the 170 MPs do not make half the number required for the formation of a government.

Still, the Congress would like to be near the throne, if not on the throne itself. The party realises that the United Front is no pushover and it will not allow the Congress to form a government easily. The alternative may be a coalition with the United Front. Kesri is seen a better person to maneuver things than anyone else.

The Congress realises it cannot push the United Front beyond a point. Deve Gowda's trump card is a mid-term poll. The Congress is not yet ready for that. Rao's removal helps the Congress to some extent. But when most of the party's leaders are seen to be involved in one scam or another, its image remains sullied.

Who can change the party's image is the real challenge before the Congress. The youthful Pawar does not enjoy a clean reputation. The party has yet to find a leader who can take the Congress to the next election, if not to the seat of power immediately.