ELECTIONS '98
COMMENTARY
SPECIALS
INTERVIEWS
CAPITAL BUZZ
REDIFF POLL
DEAR REDIFF
THE STATES
YEH HAI INDIA!
ARCHIVES

Beware the Ides of April

That the Congress party has shed its initial reserve about making a backdoor entry into federal power is clear from the tactics that it has been adopting vis-à-vis the Bharatiya Janata Party government, at least ever since Prime Minister Atal Bihar Vajpayee drove across the Wagah checkpost in a jazzed up DTC bus.

In fact, as the current Budget session of Parliament showed, AICC president Sonia Gandhi is determined to embarrass the central government on any and every count she can, even while not coming out openly and declaring to the nation what her intentions are.

Her new-found aggressiveness contrasts sharply with the Congress party's stated objective all along, since the Vajpayee government came into being, that it will play the role of a responsible opposition, which to an untrained mind like most of us possess, means extending support where it is due and opposing the government on issues where it deserves to be opposed.

Of course, the pitch and roll of the new government, in the initial months of its tenure, gave the Congress reason enough for elation. At the obvious fact there can be no better advertisement for it than the continuing reign of a bunch of inept, squabbling, inexperienced old men for whom India seemed to have posed a bigger challenge than what their collective might can take on.

Perhaps, to be charitable to Vajpayee and Co, 12 months is not time enough to expect miracles, which is what most Indians -- whether they vote or don't -- do from the administration they get. In Vajpayee's case, the expectation level was higher: for even if more Indians did not vote for his government than the ones that did, simply because this was a party who had been knocking on the doors of Delhi for decades, grandiloquently painting visions of an India that was markedly different from what one has come to accept as the reality for almost 50 years.

So, when the realisation dawned that the present government under Vajpayee was little different from what went on before him, a past whose chief architect was the Congress party whether it was in power or out of it, the Congress really cannot be blamed for gloating at this government's continuity.

The unspoken understanding was that a bumbling Vajpayee was all right, but the minute his actions bespoke authority, decision and a clear head, the Congress decided to change tack.

All of a sudden, thus, there is no talk of constructive opposition. In its place, one gets to hear about the Congress being ready for any constitutional obligation that may be placed on it, which is an open admission if there ever was, that Sonia Gandhi is willing to dislodge the BJP government, regardless of the consequences.

Since the present government did not have a clear majority of its own, since it is in reality a minority government even if it is the single largest party in the 12th Lok Sabha, it is possible that the Congress's machinations are not being perceived for what they are. What the party is attempting is not a democratic coup, but a naked display of ambition and power-seeking.

The Congress's main charge against this government is that it is not really a popular one, that it is made up of too many disparate allies, that it is subject to pulls and pressures from its various constituents. And, it really is not too wide of the mark when it makes all these charges against Vajpayee and Co.

But where it is hoodwinking the public, whether they voted for it or not, is by covering up the fact that if and when it forms a government within this Lok Sabha, the charges could be laid at its door, with more than equal ferocity.

At least it can be said of the BJP team that it went to the electorate together and sought its mandate, on the basis of a pre-determined agenda.

The Congress is seeking to dislodge the government only on the basis of the fact that it has spent long years in power, which when contrasted with the fact that this government's critics' main grouse is its inexperience.

But what Sonia Gandhi is overlooking, in her haste to convince potential allies and a listless party cadre, is that a potential Congress government will be vulnerable on all the counts than the Vajpayee government is, and more because the stakes would be so much higher for it.

What the Congress is attempting is an operation hoodwink. It has not declared to the nation who its candidate for the prime ministership is, if and when this government falls. Its prime candidate has yet to articulate her concerns, ideology, her vision for the country. In effect, both her prospective allies and the nation are expected to accept her without knowing the reality about her.

There could be many, not necessarily in the Congress, who don't find much wrong with this. That, however, does not absolve the party of any blame. What she is attempting to do, and what she hopes to do once Parliament is through with its recess, is to substitute a government that could have potential, with one that no one knows about, no one cares about, and no one really wants.

That regardless of the legitimacy or otherwise of her motives and actions, Sonia Gandhi can get away with what is playing on her mind, is a sure sign that not all is well with the system of governance we have been running for the last so many decades. A system in which numbers alone count, surely deserves an overhaul.

Saisuresh Sivaswamy