Congressmen turn to Sonia for election campaign
George Iype in New Delhi
Will she campaign for the Congress in the coming election? Will she emerge from her home at 10, Janpath to help boost the party's fortunes at the hustings?
One day after the Lok Sabha was dissolved, most Congress leaders have begun turning their heads in veneration towards the party's indisputable power centre, Sonia Gandhi.
Quite obviously, Congress president Sitaram Kesri is not a good campaigner. The party's last charismatic campaigner was Rajiv Gandhi.
After the United Front government collapsed over the Jain Commission report on Gandhi's assassination, Congressmen believe his widow -- who turns 51 on Tuesday -- should lead the party's electoral campaign.
The walls of the Congress headquarters at 24, Akbar Road in New Delhi on Friday were plastered with innumerable posters that hail: "Sonia Gandhiji, hosh me aao. Indira-Rajiv ka Congress bachao. Maa bete ka
balidan, bhool gaya hai Hindustan," (Wake up, Sonia Gandhiji. Save Indira-Rajiv's Congress. Hindustan has forgotten the sacrifices of
mother and son).
Many Congress leaders believe Sonia was instrumental in the Front government's downfall and therefore the party's fortunes at the hustings depend on her.
"We are sure Soniaji will campaign for the party. She is the only charismatic leader in the Congress who can rescue the party," says K Karunakaran, the former industry minister and senior Congress leader from Kerala.
Karunakaran does not subscribe to the view that it was at Sonia's behest that the Congress withdrew support to Prime Minister I K Gujral. "It was the unanimous opinion in the Congress that the Gujral government could not accommodate those involved in Rajiv Gandhi's assassination," he told Rediff On The NeT.
Leaders like Karunakaran claim Sonia did not want the Gujral regime to fall because of the Jain Commission report because she felt she would be blamed for the political crisis.
"Kesri's opponents like Arjun Singh and Jitendra Prasada used the Jain Commission report to settle personal scores," one senior Congress member of the just-dissolved Lok Sabha said.
Sonia's image, he felt, may have been hurt by the fact that she did not give any indication she disliked the party's manoeuverings during the three-week-long crisis.
According to this former MP, the Rajiv assassination was the one issue on which Sonia publicly criticised the Congress government of P V Narasimha Rao. "So everybody now believes she was behind the Congress-UF fight," he added.
Many Congress leaders like him want Sonia to formally enter politics. "She now enjoys political power without responsibility. Therefore, let her jump into politics and take the responsibility of running the party," one former MP said.
Interestingly, Congressmen perceived to be close to Sonia like Makhan Lal Fotedar, Arjun Singh and Narain Dutt Tiwari are working hard to revive their own political careers. Singh, however, argues that the Congress wants Sonia to campaign for the party, not to promote the career of any particular leader. "Congress workers across the country are unanimous that only Sonia has the charisma to lead the party at this juncture," he told Rediff On The NeT.
Singh said the Congress Working Committee will plead with Sonia to campaign for the party. He does not believe the election will severely test the political myth of Sonia "because she is already a Congress member."
Congress leaders like Singh believe that Sonia is not as reluctant about joining politics as she was on June 22, 1991 when she rejected an offer from the CWC to lead the party.
In May, she became a formal member of the Congress and appeared at the party's
plenary session in Calcutta in August.
With the Congress facing an identity crisis and leaders from Kesri down to the party's district and panchayat chieftains pleading with her to take up the mantle, the forthcoming poll may finally force Sonia Gandhi to make a political choice.
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