Opinion - News Analysis   

Congress keeps everyone guessing again

By Anita Joshua

NEW DELHI, MAY 1. The Congress high command is once again doing what it does best: Keep everyone — including the party — guessing. After ending the long drawn-out suspense on whether both or either of the Gandhi siblings will enter electoral politics a little over a month ago, 10 Janpath has again got the party and the nation wondering what now.

Those in the know claim that the Congress president, Sonia Gandhi's son, Rahul Gandhi, will campaign in Uttar Pradesh and his sister, Priyanka Vadra will do a roadshow in Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh, but there was no official word on their tour plans for the crucial third phase of polling on May 5.

``Why are Rahul and Priyanka not out campaigning when it is evident that they have touched a chord wherever they have gone,'' is a question doing the rounds in Congress circles. While Congress strategists claim that using Rahul and Priyanka sparingly in the 14th Lok Sabha election is part of a well-thought-out plan of action, it does not seem to be cutting much ice with the workers who have begun to wonder whether the two will do no more than just put in special/guest appearances that leading film stars do to lift the prospects of some celluloid ventures. Neither do Congress workers see much merit in the party using the two only in ``safe seats''.

Why only party workers, this is a view generally held by all those who would like to see the Congress put up a viable alternative to the Bharatiya Janata Party. And, there cannot be a more opportune moment than now for the two to re-build the organisation; particularly in Uttar Pradesh where the Congress has been all but wiped out.

The party's dormant network in the State has been activated by their entry into politics, the Muslims are ready and waiting to return to the Congress — provided it can get its act together — and the Samajwadi Party's backward vote bank is also getting disenchanted with Mulayam Singh Yadav's changing brand of politics. Add to this the nascent — but growing fatigue — with caste and communal politics across all sections of the population and a feeling that the Congress is the only party that accommodates all.

What better place for them to start than the twin family protectorates of Amethi and Rae Bareli and its adjoining areas where their entry into politics has generated not just enthusiasm among the party's dwindling cadres, but hope for the locals who have been forced to look away from the Congress because of its weakness. And, history is also on their side.

After all, it was in the Faizabad-Pratapgarh-Rae Bareli belt of the Avadh region that their great-grandfather, Jawaharlal Nehru, changed the nature of the nation's politics which till then was ``entirely bourgeois''. He involved himself in the agrarian upheaval in these three districts in 1920-21, and rewrote the nature of Indian politics in general and Congress politics in particular.

Not much has changed in this area in the 84 years that have passed. Yes, Pratabgarh has become Pratapgarh and Fyzabad is now spelt as Faizabad, and some symbols of development like telephone and electricity have reached this area, but that's about it. In fact, what Nehru described in his autobiography about his early forays into the area could hold true for what the brother-sister duo came face-to-face with in recent weeks.

Nehru wrote: ``They were in miserable rags, men and women, but their faces were full of excitement and their eyes glistened and seemed to expect strange happenings which would, as if by a miracle, put an end to their long misery. They showered their affection on us and looked on us with loving and hopeful eyes, as if we were the bearers of good tidings,... their faith in us, casual visitors from the distant city, embarrassed me and filled me with a new responsibility that frightened me.''

Will a similar response a century later fill Nehru's great-grandchildren with the same kind of responsibility is the big question. Even if one were to accept the Congress logic that it was reserving the Gandhi children — its trump card — for the 15th Lok Sabha election, Uttar Pradesh, with all the encouraging signals, is not likely to come to it on a platter. It would take more than ``two-bit'' appearances during elections by Rahul and Priyanka — ``precision bombing'' in Congress strategists' parlance — to translate the goodwill into votes.

Printer friendly page  
Send this article to Friends by E-Mail

Opinion

News: Front Page | National | Tamil Nadu | Andhra Pradesh | Karnataka | Kerala | New Delhi | Other States | International | Opinion | Business | Sport | Miscellaneous |
Advts: Classifieds | Employment | Updates: Breaking News |

Stories in this Section

• With an eye on the future
• A no-holds-barred contest
• Too close to call
• Congress keeps everyone guessing again
• Two issues crying for attention
• `Give us water, not food'

Copyright © 2004, The Hindu. Republication or redissemination of the contents of this screen are expressly prohibited without the written consent of The Hindu