Sonia's resignation, sacrifice or attempts at damage control

POLITICS: Last week when Congress President Sonia Gandhi decided to resign from her parliament seat it took the entire country by surprise.

Politicians are not known to give up their positions of power and have a reputation to cling on to their chairs like "leeches". They resort to every kind of machination to remain in power. Her decision, therefore, was celebrated by her followers as a " great sacrifice".

Was it really so or desperate attempts at damage control? The truth is that if Gandhi had not resigned from the parliament, she would have had to face the ignominy of either attracting the wrath of the election commission or the contempt of the opposition parties and the media.

The charge against her, which was coming up formally in front of the Election Commission was that she was holding an " office of profit" while being a member of parliament.

Legally speaking this is a crime, but all these years the law that prohibits an MP holding a government " office of profit" had been followed more in violation. In a freaky decision recently a member of parliament, Jaya Bacchan, was found guilty of this indiscretion and eased out from the house.

Suddenly all the MPs enjoying similar privileges began to search within themselves whether they also would suffer the fate of Bacchan.

The Congress President, who is also the Chairperson of the National Advisory Council, was one of them. There are reportedly 45 MPs that could attract this provision.

There was panic and nervousness amongst the Congress leadership when it became known to them that Gandhi too had committed a similar indiscretion.

The first reaction in the Congress party was how should they save their leader. A proposal was mooted to prorogue the parliament and bring in an ordinance. Somehow this information got leaked to the press and all hell broke loose.

The opposition leaders marched to the President and accused the government of engaging in a bizarre act of adjourning the parliament to save an individual. It was getting messy and Sonia chose the honourable route and announced her resignation.

No sooner had she done that her supporters collected in large numbers and began to raise slogans - in front of the TV cameras - demanding that she take back her resignation.

They also cursed the opposition parties for even suggesting that she was interested in power. Twice, they claimed, she had spurned power.

Her party's spin masters wanted to leverage her resignation to lend primacy to her position in national politics, which in the reckoning of many had slipped somewhat after US President George W Bush's visit to India.

Party managers were also trying to ascertain how her decision would impact politics. Indians are suckers for sacrifices and the party leadership was hopeful that it would help in lending the long awaited zing to an organisation that has shown no ideas, energy or enterprise in recent times.

The real test of this decision would be the forthcoming assembly elections to the five states including Tamil Nadu, West Bengal, Kerala and Assam. In three states, Congress' fortunes do not look very sanguine.

Assam seems the only exception, where it can come back to power due to a weak opposition.

Gandhi's decision, Congress leaders believe, would help the fortunes of the party in all these states. In a state like Kerala, where the difference in the total votes between the Congress led front and the communists is seldom more than 100,000, a sympathy wave could tilt the balance.

In Tamil Nadu, too, the beleagured front of which Congress is an ally, there is a belief that her resignation could help their formation.

Many Congress leaders are also hoping that this development translates into better politics for the party. In spite of being in power, the Congress party is shrinking.

In recent times, the party or its allies have lost in all the major elections. In the crucial Hindi heartland, the Congress is virtually non-existent. The party needs an urgent revival , if it wants to remain in business.

Congress banks heavily on the charisma of its leader for winning elections, quite clearly it does not seem to be working as well. This has been a cause for major concern.

In her own state, Uttar Pradesh, the party is in the dumps. Although she would win the re-election from her constituency, but the prospects for her party look quite dismal.

Party managers are hoping that her re-election could become a reason for rebuilding the organisation in states earlier considered its bastions.

Without UP and Bihar, the Congress is a cipher and it cannot hope to come back to power if the country is forced to go in for midterm elections.

Although Prime Minister Manmohan Singh is giving an impression of business as usual, the truth is that the instability has been injected in the polity and it just might make governance a casualty.