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Sonia's Congress revitalisation plan is for the long-term

Tara Shankar Sahay in New Delhi

The Congress's strategy for revitalising the party, as spelt out at its Pachmarhi session last week, focuses on the long term, and is a tacit admission to party members that barring imponderables, it would take a long time for the party to assume power at the Centre.

Even though the Congress is the second-largest political party in Parliament with 141 seats, party men who attended the Pachmarhi camp are aware it is an uphill task for the Congress to return to power at the Centre on its own steam. As pointed out by former Union minister Kamal Nath, party president Sonia Gandhi has taken the majority view into consideration while emphasising that the party would join a coalition government only when it became absolutely necessary.

Thus, with the majority within the Congress disfavouring an alliance with other parties and joining a coalition government, the party's prospects of gaining a simple majority in Parliament on its own appears to be difficult in this era of coalition politics.

That is why Sonia, while keeping the party's doors open to coalition politics, has emphasised that "we can enrich the economic and social life of the country even by being in the Opposition".

Sonia's contention has come as no surprise to most party men who believe that the Congress must first re-capture its pristine glory if the party is to once again become popular among the people. Senior party leader and Congress Working Committee member Arjun Singh pointed out, "Gandhi understands the political realities. That is why she has emphasised that our party would work tirelessly to recapture our political and social base in the vital states of Uttar Pradesh and Bihar, apart from West Bengal and Tamil Nadu which would also receive special attention."

Asked how the Congress would recapture the imagination of the people who had apparently gone over to leaders of social justice like Mulayam Singh Yadav and Laloo Prasad Yadav, Arjun Singh conceded this was a difficult task. However, he stressed on the party chief's assertion that the Congress would give adequate representation to a whole new generation of Dalits, Adivasis, backward classes and minorities in the party organisation at all levels, particularly women. As a result, these people would come back to the Congress, Arjun Singh said.

But Congress leaders have not discounted the possibility of the BJP-led ruling coalition at the Centre being dislodged because of the inherent contradictions among its constituents. Rajesh Pilot pointed that this was why the party chief kept reiterating that the party would not shirk its constitutional obligations -- if the President called upon it to form the government in the event of the Vajpayee government's collapse.

Vasant Sathe, former Union minister and party veteran, pointed out that the Congress was still in favour of liberalisation of economic policies as pursued by former finance minister Dr Manmohan Singh, However, the party had learnt that economic liberalisation must entail a human face. Asked to elaborate, Sathe pointed out that certain areas in the agricultural sector should be reserved for domestic industries and not opened up to MNCs. This would create much needed jobs and send out the signal that the poor people in the rural areas were also the beneficiaries of economic liberalisation, he said.

Party spokesman Ajit Jogi said although the Congress had been in power at the Centre for nearly four decades, "It is a good thing our young partymen are willing to give their best even when our party is in the Opposition". He said the party chief had seen that young Congress members were the party's future and has accordingly enthused them to struggle in times of need so that it could regain its lost prestige and popularity among the people.

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