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As government totters, Sonia beats a 'strategic retreat'

George Iype in New Delhi

Even as the Atal Bihari Vajpayee government prepares for its crucial test of survival, the Opposition led by the Congress is still groping in the dark.

A day after All-India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam general secretary J Jayalalitha pulled out her two ministers from the government, there has been no definite sign of realignment of forces, nor has another alliance emerged that could replace the BJP-led regime.

What is adding to the confusion is the cautious approach of the Congress vis-à-vis the AIADMK and Rashtriya Loktantrik Morcha leaders Laloo Prasad Yadav and Mulayam Singh Yadav.

In her meetings with party colleagues today, Congress president Sonia Gandhi made it clear that she does not want to take any step that could be interpreted as precipitating the crisis in the BJP-led coalition.

Thus, in contrast to the flurry of activity over the past two weeks, the Congress headquarters at 24 Akbar Road has been quite, um, quiet.

Congress sources said Gandhi does not want the party to get involved in the BJP-AIADMK confrontation. She also wants Jayalalitha, the third front, and the Left parties to topple the government.

"Sonia wants the Congress to remain a mute spectator till the government falls. We will act once the coalition is brought down in the Lok Sabha," a Congressman said. "This strategic retreat will keep the political credibility of the Congress intact."

That the party is in no hurry to form an alternative government is proved by the fact that most senior Congressmen like Sharad Pawar, Pranab Mukherjee, P Shiv Shankar, A K Antony and Madhavrao Scindia are out of Delhi. Even so close an aide of Sonia Gandhi like K Natwar Singh is leaving on a week's trip to China.

Gandhi wants to wait till Jayalalitha withdraws support and the ruling coalition collapses like a pack of cards to take the plunge before trying to cobble together a coalition government.

By that time, Gandhi believes, the RLM leaders will have made their stand very clear. Though the Yadavs today promised to support a "secular formation", they have not spelt out its shape: whether the new alliance should be led by the third front -- probably Mulayam Singh Yadav -- and supported by the Congress, or vice-versa.

But younger Congress politicians believe "this display of unpreparedness" by Gandhi is the result of confusion within the party about the next course of action.

Though the leadership knows the Vajpayee government will make an early exit, there has been no clarity among senior Congress Working Committee members about the advisability of leading a hotchpotch coalition.

"The political situation is very fluid. The Congress will decide its course of action only after the Vajpayee government is voted out in Parliament," All-India Congress Committee secretary Anil Shastri told Rediff On The NeT.

He said the question of whether to form an alternative government and who should head it has not been discussed in any party forum. "We have enough time to decide on such weighty matters," Shastri said, adding that informal consultations within the party and with the opposition parties would continue over the next week.

But as pressure builds on her to act, Sonia Gandhi is increasingly finding herself in a fix. For one, she is reluctant to head an interim government herself. What's more, she is unsure whether the Congress should lead a coalition or support a third front government from outside.

If Gandhi heads an alternative government, she and the party she has nurtured over the past year are certain to get discredited. The day she becomes prime minister, the BJP will launch a "swadeshi versus videshi" campaign, attacking her Italian roots.

But at the same time, Gandhi is wary of appointing any other Congress politician as the next prime minister, for fear that her grip on the party and the enormous clout she wields in it could vanish.

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