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"Sonia Gandhi and Manmohan Singh are not happy with the developments in Jharkhand. The Congress president has no role in the formation of the UPA government in the state." By the evening of March 3, twenty four hours after the JMM's Shibu Soren was sworn in as the new chief minister of Jharkhand, Sonia acolytes were at pains to distance their leader from the grotesque happenings in the Ranchi Raj Bhavan.
See the contrast. On March 2, immediately after the coup in Ranchi, AICC spokesman Anand Sharma, union minister Subodh Kant Sahai and Congress party observer for Jharkhand, CPN Singh, were all over TV channels defending the Governor, Syed Sibte Razi. They celebrated his loyalty, asserting the UPA claim to form governments not only in Jharkhand but also in Bihar. Sahai even claimed that the secular bloc had won the largest number and "even few BJP MLAs are supporting us."
This, from a party that has not elected its leader in Haryana even four days after winning a two-thirds majority.
Sonia Gandhi was beginning to enjoy absolute power. The veneer of sacrifice, a pliable Prime Minister, allies acting as henchmen, comrades at her feet, secular terror almost captivating the media, the madam at 10, Janpath was in a great hurry. From Filipe Neri Rodrigues in Goa to Stephan Marandi in Jharkhand -loyally assisted in the holy crusade against the satanic BJP by Margaret Alva, Ajit Jogi, Oscar Fernandes, Rajashekhar Reddy, Ahmed Patel, Jamir and Razi - Sonia was all set to turn the hand into a clenched fist, to muzzle democracy and attain absolute authority. Her enemy Number One, nay, the only enemy was the BJP. If actions are a guide to the intent, the Congress leader was on a course which could have taken the country back to the 1970s, the days of contract killings, censorship and MISA arrests.
The Congress has a long history of subverting democracy and the Constitution. Sonia has the added disadvantage of not being able to understand the Indian mind, our deep democratic traditions and an almost obsessive passion for fair play. Nor did she anticipate the instantaneous reproach of the media to the Jharkhand episode. She had tasted blood in Goa, and concluded that in the name of secularism, murder was passé. And this was the height of Sonia's glory. An alert NDA leadership and an equally active media successfully exposed the Congress' greed.
The entire operation was being monitored with the full knowledge of the party high command. As soon as it became clear that both in Jharkhand and Bihar the NDA had made big gains, the Congress managers started playing a profound tune. Against all evidence, AICC general secretary Ambika Soni claimed: "The mandate is for secular forces - we will form the government everywhere."
Soni was speaking Sonia mind.
The Assembly election was a big setback for the secular terrorists. They could not fight the polls united. If they couldn't agree on a few seats, how were they going to keep the BJP out of power? The secular purring did not actually attract the voter. Even Muslim voters were not impressed by the UPA rhetoric. Or else, why did all the 30 Muslim candidates put up by Ram Vilas Paswan lose? Why did the Congress fail in getting Muslim votes, which alone assured it of a revival in the north? The truth is Congress is like an old elephant which cannot lift loads without huge feeds. And for this, it needs power. The Jharkhand script was written the day the results were out. Some newspapers in Ranchi carried reports quoting Stephan Marandi as saying that the Governor will not allow the NDA to form the government. In fact, the Goa episode was much more gruesome.
Cheered by the docile red brigade, Sonia Gandhi convinced herself that the time had come to usher in the modern version of a holy Roman empire in Delhi. The fig leaf used is "protecting secularism"
The story would have been scripted differently had Jharkhand been an isolated instance. Three weeks ago, we witnessed the macabre coup enacted at midnight in Goa's Raj Bhavan. The similarity is so striking that only a political novice can ignore it. Sonia's trusted lieutenant Margaret Alva was the in-charge of the operation in Panaji. She had the cheek to claim that if the Congress didn't have sufficient numbers "we will get some BJP members to extend support."
Shibu Soren was not the Congress' first choice. The Congress high command had engineered a split in the JMM on religious lines. The same was the case with Goa. The party's central minister, Oscar Fernandes, who too is known to be close to 10, Janpath, played a role in splitting the JMM vote and propping up Stephen Marandi as an alternative Jharkhand tribal leader.
Though Stephen Marandi could use the support of the local Church to defeat Soren's second son, other candidates sponsored by the Church were not so lucky.
The Congress seems to have taken a vow not to tolerate any government led by the BJP anywhere in the country. Earlier there was even talk of dismissing the Gujarat government on the basis of the manufactured UC Banerjee Committee report on Godhra. But the election results to the three state assemblies proved disastrous for the Congress. Ever since its unexpected ascent to the Delhi throne, the party was nursing pan Indian ambitions, hoping that the BJP was finished forever and the Hindi heartland was waiting impatiently to fall into its lap. The Grand Old party fell into bad ways in the company of the Communists. Remember the 1970s? A magnificent Congress victory,after the Bangladesh war under Indira Gandhi, was turned into a national nightmare under Communist tutelage. Even for Jawaharlal Nehru, the company of comrade VK Krishna Menon proved costly. Sonia Gandhi does not have the popular image, political savvy or grasp of a Nehru or Indira Gandhi. Further, she is a Christian, foreigner, possessed by inelegant hurry to establish her dynasty.
It was this hurry and miscalculation that led the party to engage in misadventures in Jharkhand, Bihar and Uttar Pradesh. But of the 414 assembly seats that went to the polls in the three states, only a measly 86 fell into Congress' net. This dashed the hopes of the party managers, who were planning for a snap poll sometime later in the year to install Sonia Gandhi as the prime minister on the crest of a rejuvenated Congress.
The entire operation was so crude that before being sworn in Shibu Soren had to resign from the union cabinet and his resignation letter was faxed from a post office in Ranchi to the Prime Minister. The Congress also ditched its closer ally, Ram Vilas Paswan, to make up with Lalu, despite protests from its state unit in Bihar.
What clearly spoiled the carefully crafted script was the swift action by the NDA in transporting the entire team of 41 MLAs to Delhi and presenting before President APJ Abdul Kalam. The BJP's young leaders - Venkaiah Naidu, Rajnath Singh, Pramod Mahajan and Arun Jaitley - proved more than a match for the UPA's henchmen. Advani articulated the agony of the nation when he described the governor''s action as murder of democracy. In this bargain the Congress lost not only the number game, but its moral authority to govern. It cannot either protect democracy or secularism. The hallowed constitution is a captive to its whims.
The NDA has won a huge moral victory.
Advani should be pleased with himself and satisfied with his youthful team,
their sophistication, elan and verve which made the task easier. It was
the Rashtrapati Bhavan show that clinched the issue. No bogus claim it
was and that is why the Congressmen are in such a hurry to protect their
leader. As for Sonia the game is over even before it began.
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