Back to the high command mode

WITH ALMOST ALL the State units of the party having passed resolutions authorising Ms. Sonia Gandhi to constitute the Congress Working Committee (CWC) entirely with her nominees (rather than hold elections for at least 12 out of the 24 seats), the entrenching of the party in the servility to dynasty mode is complete. The Congress constitution, indeed, provides for nominations by the party president of at least 12 members to the CWC. The supposed rationale of this is the ensuring that such persons who do not command a large support base within the electoral college but are possessed with leadership qualities are involved in the decision-making process in the party; the provision for nomination was included in the party constitution also in order to ensure representation for party units from States where the party organisation is not all that strong. But then the manner in which the party's leaders in the various State units were vying with each other in getting the AICC members (the electoral college for the Working Committee) to endorse the idea of a nominated CWC and not elections appears to have been only a means adopted to display ``loyalty'' to the supreme leader. And sections in the party considered part of Ms. Sonia Gandhi's inner circle have been also found orchestrating such a campaign and ensuring that resolutions by the State units were conveyed to Mr. Ram Niwas Mirdha, the Electoral Officer.

It may be true that Ms. Sonia Gandhi herself is yet to take a formal position on these resolutions; she has not indicated her mind on whether she is going to accept the idea of a CWC whose members are all nominated by her. But then, the manner in which she has allowed her campaign managers to reduce the election to the party president's post - the drumming up of support for her and the campaign they were engaged in against Mr. Jitendra Prasada, even ``encouraging'' those who accused him of being an agent of the Congress' enemies and all such insinuations - to a mere farce points uncomfortably to Ms. Sonia Gandhi's own role in this. Ms. Sonia Gandhi was also there to willingly approve (if not orchestrate) the idea that presidents of the various State units be nominated by her rather than be elected to the post. That Ms. Sonia Gandhi has refrained from expressing disapproval of the ongoing project will be read as an indication of her mind. And by doing this, she is only injecting fresh life into the ``high command syndrome'' that is the party's bane since the days of Indira Gandhi and is now among the causes for its present moribund state.

The tendency to scuttle inner party democracy is neither a new development in the Congress nor is it a means resorted to by members of the Nehru-Indira dynasty alone. After all, Mr. P. V. Narasimha Rao, even when he effected a decisive break with the nomination culture in the party at the AICC Tirupati session in 1992, obtained the resignation of two elected members to the CWC - Mr. Arjun Singh and Mr. Sharad Pawar - only to nominate them to the body once again. After the Tirupati AICC session, the Congress as a party was showing signs of getting out of the high command mode every now and then only to return to its own self soon after. It is this process that seems to have taken a beating with the return of a member from the dynasty at the helm. The members of the Congress are indeed well within their rights to rally around the supreme leader. But then, they cannot afford this luxury and yet hope to retrieve the party from virtual decimation. The choice has never been more stark.

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